Motor Imagery Ability is Associated with Action Prediction in a Volleyball-Based Task

Despite evidence that motor imagery (MI) facilitates motor experience and refinement of a motor representation, the association between MI and creating anticipatory representations of a motor skill is unknown. Here, our aims were two-fold: 1) we sought to examine the effect of both kinesthetic and visual MI on action prediction (AP) in a sports context, when motor skills are observed from both the 1st- and 3rd-person perspective, and 2) we sought to explore whether individual differences in volleyball experience and MI ability are associated with action prediction. Participants (N = 116, 83 female, M = 2.60±3.70 years volleyball experience) were randomized into two groups (Control, MI). Both groups engaged in an online AP task which involved watching temporally occluded videos of volleyball serves (two Video Conditions: 1st- and 3rd-person perspective) and predicting where the ball would land. The MI Group additionally performed MI of the serve before making their prediction. Accuracy (proportion of correct responses) on the AP task was calculated across participants and Video Condition. Linear mixed effects modelling and associated effect sizes revealed that AP performance was greater when videos were viewed from the 3rd person perspective overall, and further enhanced for longer Occlusion Time Points. A PCA revealed three components (“Imagery Ability”, “Volleyball Specific Experience”, and “Non-sport Specific Experience”) explaining 61.6% of the variance. AP performance at longer Occlusion Time Points was found to be associated with the Imagery Ability component. Overall, MI ability was associated with greater AP performance in a sport-specific context when performed during the task. Further work is required to understand how expertise may modulate the association between MI and action prediction.