The effect of various types of visual and kinesthetic mental imagery on learning of throwing skill from below the shoulder og children

Mental imagery, incudes visualizing or motor cognitive review without physical components, is one of the sychological methods to improve performance and facilitate skills. Although the applied model has shown that there is an interaction between the type of imagery and and the ability of imagery and motor output is increased by bettter performance, there is a research gap whether neural representation causes different behavioral effects among children through vividness of imagery.

The aim of present study was the effect of various types of visual and kinesthetic mental imagery on learning of close motor skill in children as well as the relationship between the ability to imagery vividness and motor performance.

the research was quasi-experimental with a multi-group pre-test- post-test design along with a control group. The statistical population of the study was all female students aged 8 to 10 years in Ahvaz. 90 female students were deployed by random sampling method available in 6 groups of 15 people of physical practice (PPG), visual imagery (VIG), kinesthetic imagery (KIG), visual imagery and physical practice composition (VIPPG), kinesthetic imagery and physical practice composition (KIPPG), and control group (CG). Each participant performed 35 throws in 7 blocks of 5 trials in pre-test 5, acquisition 20, post-test 5, and transfer 5. The ability of imagery vividness of participants was measured by questionnaire of motor imagery vividness (Isak et al., 1986). Data analysis was performed using mixed variance analysis (phase) 3× (group) 6 and Pearson correlation by Spss21 software.

The performance of the various imagery groups was equal to that of physical practice group in the post-test (retention) phase. The results at the transfer phase showed that the combination of mental imagery with physical training had significantly higher performance than the other groups. The results of the research also showed that the visual mental imagery and kinesthetic imagery groups showed equal performance in the transfer and retention stages (KIG=VIG, KIPPG=VIPPG). The results of the research did not show any relationship between the ability of imageryvividness and motor performance.

The results of the research showed that children have the ability to visualize motor skills the same as adults. However, children (8 to 10 years of age) do not have the ability to separate the visual and kinesthetic imagery and understand their differences.  The results also showed that the ability to have a vivid imagery has no significant effect on childrenchr('39')s motor performance.