Document Type : Research Paper I Open Access I Released under CC BY-NC 4.0 license
Authors
1 Assistant Professor of Motor Behavior-Department of Sport Sciences-Faculty of Education and Psychology-Shiraz University-Shiraz-Iran
2 MSc student of motor behavior at Shiraz University
3 MsC Student of Motor Behavior at Shiraz University
4 MsC of Motor Behavior at Shiraz University
Abstract
Introduction:
This study aimed to directly manipulate feedback in physical execution and action observation to address whether feedback serves as a justifying variable for the different effects of physical practice, observational practice, and motor imagery.
Methods:
Sixty right-handed students participated in this study and were randomly divided into six groups as follows: physical, observational, mental, physical without feedback, observational without feedback, and control. The participants practiced golf putting for one day (9 blocks of 18 trials). The training groups practiced the task physically, observationally, or through imagery based on the aforementioned grouping. The physical without feedback and observational without feedback groups were prevented from observing the ball's stopping point. The accuracy of the participants' shots and the number of dynamic degrees of freedom were measured as performance variables.
Results
In the movement accuracy variable, it was shown that removing feedback in physical practice and observational practice reduces performance to the level of mental practice. However, in the number of dynamic degrees of freedom, it was shown that motor imagery differs significantly from the groups without feedback, and removing feedback in these two conditions did not make them similar to mental practice.
Conclusion:
These results were explained based on different underlying mechanisms. It was argued that physical practice is a perception-based training and motor imagery is a cognitive cognition based practice that relies on memory representation for movement production. In contrast, observational practice is a bidirectional perceptual-cognitive process.
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