Questioning the transfer effect of motor imagery benefits: The neglected variable of interest

Abstract

Over the last three decades, a large amount of experimental research aimed at determining the optimal motor imagery practice guidelines, and provided a comprehensive overview of the main recommendations to develop effective interventions. Yet, the scientific literature paid little attention to transfer effects resulting from motor imagery practice. In the present paper, we examined whether performance gains following motor imagery were task-specific or likely to be transferred to partially distinct motor skills. Twenty-eight golf players of intermediate level were involved in a 12-weeks test-retest design, where swing and putting performances were measured. All participants were subjected to three 4-week imagery interventions (internal visual imagery, external visual imagery and kinesthetic imagery), which were contrasted to a control pre-test measure. During each imagery intervention, they were requested to imagine only the swing shot. All imagery interventions contributed to enhance swing performance, and gains largely transferred to the putting performance in spite of a complete absence of training. A slight superiority of external visual imagery was observed for both shots. Interestingly, individual motor imagery ability scores predicted performance gains under the corresponding motor imagery training condition. Taken together, present findings support transfer effects of motor imagery interventions. Practically, this effect should be considered to achieve optimally effective interventions to enhance performance in relation to individual motor imagery ability profiles.