Spatial manipulation as a covariant of mental practice

Abstract

This experiment examined the relationship between a subject's ability to manipulate spatial relationships and utilize mental practice in the mirror drawing ability of 45 naive volunteer college students, using a six-pointed star track. The spatial manipulation abilities of all subjects were assessed with the Minnesota Paper Form Board Test, after which the subjects were divided into three treatment groups (no practice, mental practice, and physical practice) of 15 subjects using a blocked random design based upon their MPFBT scores. All three groups were trained in the mirror drawing task and given three physical practice pre-trials for familiarization. The physical practice group (PP) was given six, 80-second physical practice trials with a 40-second interpolated rest/reading period during which they read from a standardized poetry text. The mental practice group (MP) was given six, 80-second mental practice trials with the same 40- second interpolated rest/reading period, and the no practice group (NP) was allowed to read from the standardized text for an equal amount of time. Following administration of the treatment conditions, all subjects were given three physical practice post-trials in the mirror drawing task. The mean of pre-trials two and three were subtracted from the mean of the three post-trials to obtain an improvement score. The subjects' scores on the MPFBT were compared to their improvement scores using the Spearman Rank-Order Correlation (rho) test, but there was no significant correlation between the two abilities.