Department of Motor Behavior, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Kinesiology, College for Health, Community & Policy, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, USA.
Hum Mov Sci. 2021 Feb;75:102742. doi: 10.1016/j.humov.2020.102742. Epub 2020 Dec 9.
We investigated whether children's motor imagery dominance modulated the relationship between attentional focus and motor learning of a tossing task. One hundred and thirty-eight boys (age: M = 10.13, SD = 0.65) completed the Movement Imagery Questionnaire - Children (MIQ-C) to determine imagery modality dominance (kinesthetic, internal-visual, external-visual) and were randomly assigned to either an internal (n = 71) or external (n = 67) attentional focus group. Participants completed 60 trials of a tossing task with their non-dominant hand on day 1. Participants in the internal focus group were asked "to focus on the throwing arm", whereas participants in the external focus group were instructed "to focus on the ball." A retention test was conducted 24 h later to assess motor learning. Overall, the results from a nested, multiple linear regression analysis indicated the degree to which internal or external focus influences children's throwing accuracy is dependent upon their motor imagery modality dominance. Specifically, higher levels of external-visual imagery dominance resulted in greater motor learning for children adopting an external focus. In contrast, higher values of kinesthetic imagery dominance resulted in reduced motor learning for children who adopted an external focus. Despite the need for future research, we recommend motor imagery modality dominance assessments be considered when investigating the influence of attentional focus on motor learning, particularly when the target population is children.
我们研究了儿童的运动表象优势是否调节了注意力集中与投掷任务运动学习之间的关系。138 名男孩（年龄：M=10.13，SD=0.65）完成了运动表象问卷-儿童版（MIQ-C），以确定表象模式优势（动觉、内部视觉、外部视觉），并被随机分配到内部（n=71）或外部（n=67）注意焦点组。参与者在第一天用非优势手完成了 60 次投掷任务。内部焦点组的参与者被要求“专注于投掷手臂”，而外部焦点组的参与者则被指示“专注于球”。24 小时后进行保留测试，以评估运动学习。总体而言，嵌套的多线性回归分析的结果表明，内部或外部焦点对儿童投掷准确性的影响程度取决于他们的运动表象模式优势。具体来说，外部视觉表象优势程度越高，采用外部焦点的儿童运动学习效果越好。相比之下，采用外部焦点的儿童动觉表象优势程度越高，运动学习效果越差。尽管需要进一步的研究，但我们建议在研究注意力集中对运动学习的影响时，特别是当目标人群是儿童时，考虑运动表象模式优势评估。
