Hyde Christian, Fuelscher Ian, Buckthought Karen, Enticott Peter G, Gitay Maria A, Williams Jacqueline
Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Res Dev Disabil. 2014 Nov;35(11):3062-70. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2014.07.042. Epub 2014 Aug 15.
The present study aimed to provide preliminary insight into the integrity of motor imagery (MI) in adults with probable developmental coordination disorder (pDCD). Based on a strong body of evidence indicating that paediatric samples of DCD often experience difficulties engaging MI, we hypothesised that young adults with pDCD would demonstrate similar difficulties. The performance of 12 young adults (19-35 years) with pDCD was compared to 47 age-matched controls on a traditional mental hand rotation task. Mean inverse efficiency scores were generated for each participant by dividing each participant's mean RT by their proportion of correct responses at each of the stimuli presentation conditions. Preliminary analysis revealed that the performance profiles of individuals with pDCD and age-matched controls showed evidence of being constrained by the biomechanical and postural constraints of real movement, suggesting that both groups engaged in an embodied (MI) strategy to complete the task. Despite engaging in a MI strategy, however, young adults with pDCD were nonetheless significantly less efficient when doing so, shown by significant main effects for group on all group efficiency comparisons. Based on the assumption that MI provides insight into the internal 'neural' action representation that precedes action, we argue that the less efficient MI performance demonstrated by young adults with pDCD may indicate inefficiencies engaging or implementing internal action representations. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
本研究旨在初步探究可能患有发育协调障碍（pDCD）的成年人运动想象（MI）的完整性。基于大量证据表明，患有发育协调障碍的儿童样本在进行运动想象时常常遇到困难，我们推测患有pDCD的年轻人也会有类似的困难。在一项传统的心理手部旋转任务中，将12名患有pDCD的年轻人（19 - 35岁）的表现与47名年龄匹配的对照组进行了比较。通过将每个参与者的平均反应时间除以他们在每个刺激呈现条件下的正确反应比例，为每个参与者生成平均逆效率得分。初步分析表明，患有pDCD的个体和年龄匹配的对照组的表现特征显示出受到真实运动的生物力学和姿势限制的证据，这表明两组都采用了一种具身化（运动想象）策略来完成任务。然而，尽管采用了运动想象策略，但患有pDCD的年轻人在这样做时效率仍然显著较低，在所有组效率比较中，组间的显著主效应表明了这一点。基于运动想象能够洞察行动之前的内部“神经”动作表征这一假设，我们认为患有pDCD的年轻人表现出的较低效率的运动想象可能表明在参与或实施内部动作表征方面存在效率低下的情况。讨论了未来研究的意义和方向。
