Mental representation and mental practice: The influence of imagery rehearsal on representation structure, gaze behavior and performance

Abstract

Up to now, research has elicited differences in mental representations of complex action between experts and novices [1]. That is, while mental representations of experts are organized hierarchically and structured in a functional way, representations of novices are less hierarchically organized and less structured, such that they match poorly the functional and biomechanical demands of the task. Recently, it has been demonstrated that novices’ representation structures of complex action functionally adapt as a result of physical practice during skill acquisition [2]. More recently, it has been suggested that mental practice adds to this cognitive adaptation process [3]. Specifically, after mental and physical practice, participants showed quite elaborate representation structures. In contrast, participants practicing physically only revealed less elaborate representation structures. Thus, representation structures develop differently depending on the type of practice. Moreover, mental practice seems to add to the functional adaptation of representations during skill acquisition.