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An emerging paradigm: a strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery

Mental imagery, or the ability to simulate in the mind information that is not currently perceived by the senses, has attracted considerable research interest in psychology since the early 1970's. Within the past two decades, research in this field—as in cognitive psychology more generally—has...

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Autores principales: MacIntyre, Tadhg E., Moran, Aidan P., Collet, Christian, Guillot, Aymeric
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3612690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23554591
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00104
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author MacIntyre, Tadhg E.
Moran, Aidan P.
Collet, Christian
Guillot, Aymeric
author_facet MacIntyre, Tadhg E.
Moran, Aidan P.
Collet, Christian
Guillot, Aymeric
author_sort MacIntyre, Tadhg E.
collection PubMed
description Mental imagery, or the ability to simulate in the mind information that is not currently perceived by the senses, has attracted considerable research interest in psychology since the early 1970's. Within the past two decades, research in this field—as in cognitive psychology more generally—has been dominated by neuroscientific methods that typically involve comparisons between imagery performance of participants from clinical populations with those who exhibit apparently normal cognitive functioning. Although this approach has been valuable in identifying key neural substrates of visual imagery, it has been less successful in understanding the possible mechanisms underlying another simulation process, namely, motor imagery or the mental rehearsal of actions without engaging in the actual movements involved. In order to address this oversight, a “strength-based” approach has been postulated which is concerned with understanding those on the high ability end of the imagery performance spectrum. Guided by the expert performance approach and principles of ecological validity, converging methods have the potential to enable imagery researchers to investigate the neural “signature” of elite performers, for example. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explain the origin, nature, and implications of the strength-based approach to mental imagery. Following a brief explanation of the background to this latter approach, we highlight some important theoretical advances yielded by recent research on mental practice, mental travel, and meta-imagery processes in expert athletes and dancers. Next, we consider the methodological implications of using a strength-based approach to investigate imagery processes. The implications for the field of motor cognition are outlined and specific research questions, in dynamic imagery, imagery perspective, measurement, multi-sensory imagery, and metacognition that may benefit from this approach in the future are sketched briefly.
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spelling pubmed-36126902013-04-01 An emerging paradigm: a strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery MacIntyre, Tadhg E. Moran, Aidan P. Collet, Christian Guillot, Aymeric Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Mental imagery, or the ability to simulate in the mind information that is not currently perceived by the senses, has attracted considerable research interest in psychology since the early 1970's. Within the past two decades, research in this field—as in cognitive psychology more generally—has been dominated by neuroscientific methods that typically involve comparisons between imagery performance of participants from clinical populations with those who exhibit apparently normal cognitive functioning. Although this approach has been valuable in identifying key neural substrates of visual imagery, it has been less successful in understanding the possible mechanisms underlying another simulation process, namely, motor imagery or the mental rehearsal of actions without engaging in the actual movements involved. In order to address this oversight, a “strength-based” approach has been postulated which is concerned with understanding those on the high ability end of the imagery performance spectrum. Guided by the expert performance approach and principles of ecological validity, converging methods have the potential to enable imagery researchers to investigate the neural “signature” of elite performers, for example. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explain the origin, nature, and implications of the strength-based approach to mental imagery. Following a brief explanation of the background to this latter approach, we highlight some important theoretical advances yielded by recent research on mental practice, mental travel, and meta-imagery processes in expert athletes and dancers. Next, we consider the methodological implications of using a strength-based approach to investigate imagery processes. The implications for the field of motor cognition are outlined and specific research questions, in dynamic imagery, imagery perspective, measurement, multi-sensory imagery, and metacognition that may benefit from this approach in the future are sketched briefly. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC3612690/ /pubmed/23554591 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00104 Text en Copyright © 2013 MacIntyre, Moran, Collet and Guillot. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
MacIntyre, Tadhg E.
Moran, Aidan P.
Collet, Christian
Guillot, Aymeric
An emerging paradigm: a strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery
title An emerging paradigm: a strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery
title_full An emerging paradigm: a strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery
title_fullStr An emerging paradigm: a strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery
title_full_unstemmed An emerging paradigm: a strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery
title_short An emerging paradigm: a strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery
title_sort emerging paradigm: a strength-based approach to exploring mental imagery
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3612690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23554591
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00104
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