Conson Massimiliano, De Bellis Francesco, Baiano Chiara, Zappullo Isa, Raimo Gennaro, Finelli Carmela, Ruggiero Ines, Positano Monica, Trojano Luigi
Department of Psychology, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Caserta, Italy.
Department of Psychology, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Caserta, Italy.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2020 Feb;203:103010. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103010. Epub 2020 Jan 22.
Behavioural evidence suggest that males outperform females in mentally transforming objects, whereas whether sex differences exist in mentally transforming body part images (implicit motor imagery) is an open issue. The aim of the present study was to fill this gap testing performance of 360 healthy participants on a classical behavioural measure of implicit motor imagery: the hand laterality task. Participants had to judge handedness of hand images portrayed from back and palm and presented in different spatial orientations. Two main findings emerged. First, males were significantly faster than females in judging hands portrayed from palm, in particular left palms at 0°, 90° and 180° orientation, whereas females were faster than males in judging backs, in particular left and right backs at 0° and the left back at 90°. Second, both males and females showed a significant biomechanical effect (faster responses for hands portrayed in medial vs. lateral positions) while judging palms, albeit the effect was stronger in males, whereas only females showed a significant biomechanical effect when judging backs. Thus, males and females seem to differently exploit motor simulation processes during mental transformation of hand images depending on a specific familiarity with body parts portrayed from different views. This result might be taken into account when tailoring motor imagery tasks in applied contexts, as motor rehabilitation.
行为证据表明，在对物体进行心理转换方面男性表现优于女性，而在对身体部位图像进行心理转换（内隐运动表象）时是否存在性别差异仍是一个悬而未决的问题。本研究的目的是通过对360名健康参与者进行一项经典的内隐运动表象行为测量——手部偏侧性任务，来填补这一空白。参与者必须判断从背部和手掌描绘的手部图像的利手情况，这些图像以不同的空间方向呈现。出现了两个主要发现。第一，在判断从手掌描绘的手部时，男性比女性明显更快，特别是在0°、90°和180°方向的左手掌，而在判断背部时女性比男性更快，特别是在0°的左右背部和90°的左背部。第二，在判断手掌时，男性和女性都表现出显著的生物力学效应（对内侧与外侧位置描绘的手部反应更快），尽管男性的效应更强，而在判断背部时只有女性表现出显著的生物力学效应。因此，在对手部图像进行心理转换时，男性和女性似乎根据对从不同视角描绘的身体部位的特定熟悉程度，以不同方式利用运动模拟过程。在诸如运动康复等应用场景中制定运动表象任务时，可能需要考虑这一结果。
