The study of motor imagery and interoceptive skills in diversified populations

Motor imagery (MI) is a mental process in which movements are mentally evoked without overt actions (Jeannerod,1995), while interoception refers to the signalling, representation, and perception of internal bodily sensations coming from the visceral organs (Craig,2003). We assessed motor imagery and interoceptive domains using several experimental tools such as mental chronometry and heartbeat detection task. Therefore, this thesis provides an advanced research investigation including several research aims, motor imagery and interoception across numerous domains. This thesis contains five chapters, including three research studies. Chapter 1 critically reviews the behavioural and experimental research paradigms of motor imagery, and interoception, and their rationale for the research thesis, including theoretical and experimental implications. Chapter 2 presents experimental study one, investigated the motor imagery and interoception skills in musician by examining the associations between the practice of a musical instrument, motor imagery, and interoceptive abilities in a population of pianists. This research study fitted into a research field characterised by a certain complexity of examinations and heterogeneous contributions. The findings of the motor imagery reflected that there were no notable differences in both implicit and explicit motor imagery between the pianists and control group. This result was explained within new frames of reference for the mental hand rotation task, according to which performance at the task would be underlain predominantly by visual perceptual processes, whereas motor imagery in musicians has a motor and auditory nature. On the other hand, in explicit motor imagery, significant differences emerged between pianists and controls related specifically to speed and not to imagery quality. The pianists in this study did not show better interoceptive abilities compared to control subjects. This finding may reflect a subsisting relationship between stress and interoception. Chapter 3 highlights experimental study two: ‘’The study of bimanual coordination in healthy subjects in Kelso Paradigm’’. The current study focused on three objectives; i) reproducing the temporal intermanual coupling effect ‘’Kelso effect’’ in the executed bimanual coordination; ii) demonstrating the presence of the same effect in the imagined conditions; iii) verifying if the intermanual temporal coupling is remained across the lifespan. The study’s purpose was to demonstrate that the Kelso’s effect influences both the real and the imagined bimanual motor performance across the lifespan. The presence of findings reflected the Kelso’s Effect, not only when executing the bimanual movements, but also when imaging them. This effect was independent from age even though in general older participants are slower than younger ones. Chapter 4 consists of experimental study three, which was performed to determine the association between MI and cardiac interoception among individuals with various expertise across different sport types. This research study had four main objectives; determine potential relationships between i) sport expertise and imagery (expected positive relation), ii) sport expertise and interoceptive skills (expected positive relation), iii) imagery ability and interoceptive ability (expected positive relation), and iv) the relationship between imagery and interoception ability will be stronger with higher sport expertise. This study showed a significant negative association on a subjective level between MAIA-2 and VMIQ, and between VMIQ and level of expertise in sport. Overall, the present thesis provides substantial clarification concerning motor imagery skills in both executed and imagined conditions, interoceptive skills in both accuracy and sensitivity across various domains in the literature of cognitive neuroscience and psychophysiology.