The Effects of Sensory Modalities of Mental Imagery on Learning Lay-up Shot in Basketball

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of sensory modalities of mental imagery on learning lay-up shot in basketball. Accordingly, 40 female students (mean age: 23 ± 2.5 years) voluntarily participated in this study and completed the Movement Imagery Questionnaire-Revised in order to determine their imagery ability. After preliminary instructions, a pretest of 10 trails was performed and then participants were assigned to four groups, including visual imagery, kinesthetic imagery, auditory imagery, and control group according to pretest scores. The acquisition phase included six sessions. Forty-eight hours after the acquisition test, retention and transfer tests were conducted. Mixed analysis of variance with repeated measures on test factor showed that group and test main effects and the interaction of two variables were significant. Findings of one-way ANOVA and repeated measures ANOVA as post-hoc tests for interaction effect revealed that imagery groups had significantly better performance in acquisition, retention and transfer tests compared to control group, although there was no significant difference among three experimental groups. In addition, groups showed significant progress in acquisition and retention test compared to pretest. These findings suggest that sport coaches and teachers can facilitate basketball lay-up shot learning using visual, auditory and kinesthetic imagery modalities.