Sakurada Takeshi, Hirai Masahiro, Watanabe Eiju
Functional Brain Science Laboratory, Center for Development of Advanced Medical Technology, Jichi Medical University, 3311-1 Yakushiji, Shimotsuke, Tochigi, 329-0498, Japan.
Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Chuo University, 1-13-27 Kasuga, Bunkyo, Tokyo, 112-8551, Japan.
Exp Brain Res. 2016 Jan;234(1):301-11. doi: 10.1007/s00221-015-4464-9. Epub 2015 Oct 14.
Motor learning performance has been shown to be affected by various cognitive factors such as the focus of attention and motor imagery ability. Most previous studies on motor learning have shown that directing the attention of participants externally, such as on the outcome of an assigned body movement, can be more effective than directing their attention internally, such as on body movement itself. However, to the best of our knowledge, no findings have been reported on the effect of the focus of attention selected according to the motor imagery ability of an individual on motor learning performance. We measured individual motor imagery ability assessed by the Movement Imagery Questionnaire and classified the participants into kinesthetic-dominant (n = 12) and visual-dominant (n = 8) groups based on the questionnaire score. Subsequently, the participants performed a motor learning task such as tracing a trajectory using visuomotor rotation. When the participants were required to direct their attention internally, the after-effects of the learning task in the kinesthetic-dominant group were significantly greater than those in the visual-dominant group. Conversely, when the participants were required to direct their attention externally, the after-effects of the visual-dominant group were significantly greater than those of the kinesthetic-dominant group. Furthermore, we found a significant positive correlation between the size of after-effects and the modality-dominance of motor imagery. These results suggest that a suitable attention strategy based on the intrinsic motor imagery ability of an individual can improve performance during motor learning tasks.
运动学习表现已被证明会受到各种认知因素的影响，如注意力焦点和运动想象能力。以往大多数关于运动学习的研究表明，将参与者的注意力向外引导，比如关注指定身体动作的结果，可能比将他们的注意力向内引导，比如关注身体动作本身，更有效。然而，据我们所知，尚未有关于根据个体的运动想象能力选择的注意力焦点对运动学习表现影响的报道。我们测量了通过运动想象问卷评估的个体运动想象能力，并根据问卷得分将参与者分为动觉主导组（n = 12）和视觉主导组（n = 8）。随后，参与者执行了一项运动学习任务，比如使用视觉运动旋转追踪轨迹。当要求参与者将注意力向内引导时，动觉主导组学习任务的后效应显著大于视觉主导组。相反，当要求参与者将注意力向外引导时，视觉主导组的后效应显著大于动觉主导组。此外，我们发现后效应的大小与运动想象的模态主导性之间存在显著正相关。这些结果表明，基于个体内在运动想象能力的合适注意力策略可以提高运动学习任务中的表现。
