Abstract des Autors

Several studies suggested the existence of a functional equivalence between motor imagery and motor production. However, most of them were concerned with sequential or long-duration motor tsks. The aim of this experiment was to analyse the timing of a short-duration movement, the putting movement in golf, carried out either actually or mentally. Results showed that in actual movement, amplitude increased as a function of target distance whereas movement time remained stable over different target distances (principle of isochrony). By contrast, the results were clearly different in imagined movement condition. Duration of imagined movement was higher than duration of actual movement and increased as a function of target distance. Contrary to what was usually reported with long-duration movements, our results suggest the absence of a temporal equivalence between imagined and actual movement for short-duration performances. In this latter case, imagined and actual movements seemed not to share the same temporal rules of production, at least those concerning the regulation of movement time as a function of movement amplitude. Overall, the results are discussed in relation with the specific influence of mental practice on short and long-duration movements. Verf.-Referat