Motor Imagery and Action Observation | College of Liberal Arts

graphic of a brain with silhouettes of people snowboarding, surfing, skateboarding, and figure skating

How are the body and its actions mentally represented? Does watching someone else perform an action or imagining an action involve shared representations, identical to those employed during the actual execution of an action? We have found that brain regions showing increased activity during action observation are a subset of those engaged during motor imagery, which in turn are a subset of those engaged during actual execution of an action. We are currently studying how action observation and motor imagery can be used for motor skill learning, training, and rehabilitation.

Related Publications

LaFortune, J., & Macuga, K.L. (2018). Learning movements from a virtual instructor: Effects of spatial orientation, immersion, and expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 24, 521-533.
Macuga, K.L., & Frey, S.H. (2012). Neural representations involved in observed, imagined, and imitated actions are dissociable and hierarchically organized. NeuroImage, 59, 2798-2807.