An examination of imagery ability and imagery use in skilled golfers

Objectives The use of imagery to improve golf performance is well established and recognised as a key psychological technique in developing and maintaining excellence. However, the relationship between a golfer’s imagery ability and their imagery use is still poorly understood. The current study examined differences in participants vividness of movement imagery and imagery use and the extent their vividness of movement imagery predicted functions of imagery use. Methods One hundred and one male skilled golfers (Mage=27.80, SD=11.03) with CONGU recognised handicaps ranging from plus 4 to 5 (Mhandicap=1.32, SD=2.74) completed both the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire-2 (Roberts, R., Callow, N., Hardy, L., Markland, D., & Bringer, J. (2008). Movement imagery ability: Development and assessment of a revised version of the vividness of movement imagery questionnaire. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 30(2), 200–221) and Sports Imagery Questionnaire (Hall, C. R., Mack, D. E., Paivio, A., & Hauesenblas, H. A. (1998). Imagery use by athletes: Development of the sport imagery questionnaire. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 29, 73–89). Results The results demonstrated no significant differences between Internal and External visual imagery, however, Kinaesthetic imagery scores were significantly higher than External visual imagery scores. Significant differences in imagery use were recorded with participants reporting higher Cognitive specific imagery use scores compared to other functions of imagery use. Regression analyses indicted that golf handicap accounted for 12% in the variance of Cognitive specific imagery use with an additional 12% accounted for by Internal visual imagery and 7% Kinaesthetic imagery. For Cognitive general imagery use golf handicap accounted for 4% of the variance with Internal visual imagery adding a further 5% to the model. Conclusions Our findings highlight that vividness of movement imagery; specifically, Internal and Kinaesthetic imagery ability are significant predictors of skilled golfers Cognitive specific and Cognitive general imagery use.

Handedness Effects on Movement Imagery During Kinesthetic and Visual-Motor Conditions. An EEG Study

Recent studies show that during a simple movement imagery task, the power of sensorimotor rhythms differs according to handedness. However, the effects of motor imagery perspectives on these differences have not been investigated yet. Our study aimed to check how handedness impacts the activity of alpha (8 - 13 Hz) and beta (15 - 30 Hz) oscillations during creating a kinesthetic (KMI) or visual-motor (VMI) representation of movement. Forty subjects (20 right-handed and 20 left-handed) who participated in the experiment were tasked with imagining sequential finger movement from a visual or kinesthetic perspective. Both the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity and behavioral correctness of the imagery task performance were measured. After the registration, we used independent component analysis (ICA) on EEG data to localize visual- and motor-related EEG sources of activity shared by both motor imagery conditions. Significant differences were obtained in the visual cortex (the occipital ICs cluster) and the right motor-related area (right parietal ICs cluster). In comparison to right-handers who, regardless of the task, demonstrated the same pattern in the visual area, left-handers obtained higher power in the alpha waves in the VMI task and better performance in this condition. On the other hand, only the right-handed showed different patterns in the alpha waves in the right motor cortex during the KMI condition.The results indicate that left-handers imagine movement differently than right-handers, focusing on visual experience. This provides new empirical evidence on the influence of movement preferences on imagery processes and has possible future implications for research in the area of neurorehabilitation and motor imagery-based brain-computer interfaces (MI-BCIs).