Abstract
Skilled performers such as athletes or musicians can improve their performance by imagining the actions or sensory outcomes associated with their skill. Performers vary widely in their auditory and motor imagery abilities, and these individual differences influence sensorimotor learning. It is unknown whether imagery abilities influence both memory encoding and retrieval. We examined how auditory and motor imagery abilities influence musicians' encoding (during Learning, as they practiced novel melodies), and retrieval (during Recall of those melodies). Pianists learned melodies by listening without performing (auditory learning) or performing without sound (motor learning); following Learning, pianists performed the melodies from memory with auditory feedback (Recall). During either Learning (Experiment 1) or Recall (Experiment 2), pianists experienced either auditory interference, motor interference, or no interference. Pitch accuracy (percentage of correct pitches produced) and temporal regularity (variability of quarter-note interonset intervals) were measured at Recall. Independent tests measured auditory and motor imagery skills. Pianists' pitch accuracy was higher following auditory learning than following motor learning and lower in motor interference conditions (Experiments 1 and 2). Both auditory and motor imagery skills improved pitch accuracy overall. Auditory imagery skills modulated pitch accuracy encoding (Experiment 1): Higher auditory imagery skill corresponded to higher pitch accuracy following auditory learning with auditory or motor interference, and following motor learning with motor or no interference. These findings suggest that auditory imagery abilities decrease vulnerability to interference and compensate for missing auditory feedback at encoding. Auditory imagery skills also influenced temporal regularity at retrieval (Experiment 2): Higher auditory imagery skill predicted greater temporal regularity during Recall in the presence of auditory interference. Motor imagery aided pitch accuracy overall when interference conditions were manipulated at encoding (Experiment 1) but not at retrieval (Experiment 2). Thus, skilled performers' imagery abilities had distinct influences on encoding and retrieval of musical sequences.
Highlights
Skilled performance in sensorimotor tasks such as athletic or music performance involves a close coupling of actions with sensory outcomes, both of which must be learned in order to achieve optimal performance
Main effects of auditory imagery test scores [F(1, 20) = 10.95, p < 0.01] and motor imagery test www.frontiersin.org scores [F(1, 20) = 7.91, p < 0.05] revealed that higher auditory and motor imagery scores were associated with higher pitch accuracy overall at Recall; there was no significant interaction between auditory and motor imagery
Auditory imagery abilities did interact with interference conditions to influence temporal variability at Recall; pianists with high auditory imagery skill performed less variably in the presence of auditory interference
Summary
Skilled performance in sensorimotor tasks such as athletic or music performance involves a close coupling of actions with sensory outcomes, both of which must be learned in order to achieve optimal performance. Mental practice and physical practice yield similar changes in neural response (Pascual-Leone et al, 1995; Jackson et al, 2003) Skilled performers such as musicians vary widely in their ability to imagine the sensory outcomes and actions associated with their skill (Brodsky et al, 2003; Highben and Palmer, 2004; Brown and Palmer, 2012). These individual differences in imagery abilities modulate performers’ memory for music when auditory or motor information is missing or altered while they learn that music (Highben and Palmer, 2004; Brown and Palmer, 2012). We examine how mental imagery abilities aid musicians’ encoding and retrieval of music
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