On the link between action planning and motor imagery: a developmental study.
We examined the link between action planning and motor imagery in 6- and 8-year-old children. Action planning efficiency was assessed with a bar transport task. Motor imagery and visual imagery abilities were measured using a hand mental rotation task and a number (i.e., non-body stimuli) mental rotation task, respectively. Overall, results showed that performance varied with age in all tasks, performance being progressively refined with development. Importantly, action planning performance was correlated with motor imagery, whereas no relationship was evident between action planning and visual imagery at any age. The results showed that the ability to engage sensorimotor mechanisms when solving a motor imagery task was concomitant with action planning efficiency. The present work is the first demonstration that evaluating the consequences of the upcoming action in grasping depends on children's abilities to mentally simulate the response options to choose the most efficient grasp.
Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l'Apprentissage (CeRCA, CNRS/UMR 7295), Université de Poitiers, 5 rue Theodore Lefebvre, 86000, Poitiers, France, lucette.toussaint@univ-poitiers.fr.
Lucette
L
Toussaint
Pierre-Karim
PK
Tahej
Jean-Pierre
JP
Thibaut
Camille-Aimé
CA
Possamai
Arnaud
A
Badets
D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006225:Hand / Q000294:innervation; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D012399:Rotation; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*