Imagery perspective in copying movement

Imagery is a cognitive process widely used for learning and performance of motor skills (Morris et al., 2005). In this study, we investigated Internal (IP) and External Imagery Perspectives (EP) and actual copying of movement to deepen understanding of the character of imagery perspectives. Research on IP and EP shows that the superiority of one perspective in terms of performance enhancement is still equivocal. Further research is required to understand the character of IP and EP, and to establish how they affect learning and performance of motor skills. We applied a Stimulus-Response (S-R) compatibility protocol to a finger-movement, choice-reaction time (CRT) task to differentiate response latencies for actual copying of the movement, and IP and EP of the movement, after watching internal and external stimulus videos of the CRT button-pressing task. We used paired t-tests to analyse the differences in decision time and movement time for external and internal stimulus videos, in the physical copying of the movement condition. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine differences in response times for movement, IP, and EP imagery conditions for internal and external video stimuli. Results showed that the response times in both imagery perspective conditions were significantly slower than response times in the physical movement condition. It was further revealed that response times were faster for the internal view than the external view for the movement and IP conditions, whereas EP latencies were faster for external than internal video stimuli. We concluded that the S-R compatibility protocol can be used to confirm use of IP and EP, which is questionable in studies where participants are simply instructed to use IP or EP, and it is assumed they follow instructions, or even when they are asked to confirm use of IP or EP at the end of studies.