Characterizing Skill Acquisition Through Motor Imagery With No Prior Physical Practice

Motor learning depends upon plasticity in neural networks involved in the planning and execution of movement. Physical practice (PP) is the primary means of motor learning, but it can be augmented with nonphysical forms of practice including motor imagery (MI)-the mental rehearsal of movement. It is unknown if MI alone, without prior PP of a movement, can produce robust learning. Here the authors used an implicit sequence learning task to explore motor learning via MI alone or PP. Participants underwent implicit sequence learning training via MI (n = 31) or PP (n = 33). Posttraining reaction time was faster for implicit versus random sequences for both the MI group (M = 583 +/- 84 ms; 632 +/- 86 ms, d = 0.59) and PP group (M = 532 +/- 73 ms; 589 +/- 70 ms, d = 0.80), demonstrating that MI without PP facilitated skill acquisition. Relative to MI alone, PP led to reduced reaction time for both random (d = 0.65) and implicit sequences (d = 0.55) consistent with a nonspecific motor benefit favoring PP over MI. These results have broad implication for theories of MI and support the use of MI as a form of practice to acquire implicit motor skills.