The influence of tactile perception of water on motor imagery of swimming and walking

Previous studies on motor imagery (MI) suggest that the more similar the imagined and actual movement contexts are, the better the imagery quality. Thus, one might hypothesize that for movements performed within a medium, MI is more effective when practiced in that medium than outside it. Here, the main experiment explored the effect of tactile perception of water on MI when competitive swimmers were asked to imagine a movement performed in water: the swimming turn. The control experiment was conducted with non-athletes to examine the influence of tactile perception of water on MI of an automatized movement typically performed on land, namely walking. Isochrony was analyzed by dividing the durations of real movement with that of imagined movement. Overall, tactile perception of water did not affect the temporal accuracy of MI. In the main experiment, the imagined movement duration was lower than the real one, but no differences between in water and out of water isochronies appeared. A correlation was observed between MI kinesthetic ability scores and in water isochrony, indicating that prior MI kinesthetic ability is essential for effective in water MI. The control experiment showed no differences between real and imagined walking duration irrespective of the imagery conditions. These findings indicate that MI ability depends on the task being imagined and on the individual's imagery ability. However, it does not seem to be influenced by the tactile perception of the medium, even though tasks like swimming can only be executed when the medium (i.e., water) is present.