Motor performance may be improved by kinesthetic imagery, specific action verb production, and mental calculation

Abstract

Several results in the literature show that motor imagery, language production, mental calculation, and motor execution share the same or closely related brain motor cortical areas. The present study aimed at studying the possible influence of specific action verb (AV) pronunciation and mental calculus upon motor performance compared with kinesthetic imagery (KI). Participants, novice in mental imagery, performed a vertical jump after a cognitive task (AV, silent AV, mental subtraction, meaningless verb, and KI). The results show that specific lower limbs AV, mental calculation, and KI improved the vertical jump in male, but not in female.