Table 3.
Domain | Variables | Influence |
---|---|---|
Physical
MI *** AO * |
- Levels of physical activity | - Greater physical activity levels might generate greater facility in constructing the movement due to the experience, development, and elaboration of habitual motor schemes. |
- Perceived of mental fatigue | - The presence of high fatigue levels can affect attention, thereby limiting the brain’s construction of movement. | |
- Disturbances in sensorimotor integration | - The presence of somatosensory disturbances can generate aberrant sensorimotor schemes that could affect the movement’s construction, thereby leading to a decreased ability to generate motor images. | |
Cognitive–Evaluator
MI *** AO * |
- Understanding motor gestures and verbal instructions | - Understanding movements that are not physically elaborated can improve the planning phases of movement because emotional and cognitive limitations can be reduced. |
- Context | - The development of the movement in family and specific contexts could facilitate imagination and observation. | |
- Functioning of the working memory | - Better functioning of the working memory could increase the ability to collect the provided information and its subsequent consolidation into long-term memory, thereby facilitating the motor learning process. | |
- Self-efficacy levels | - Greater self-perception of the ability to generate motor images could enhance the brain’s ability to construct motor images. | |
- Attention levels | - Maintaining attention could facilitate the mental construction of movements and the total effort dedicated to that construction. | |
- Expectations | - Expectations of the effects of movement representation techniques might influence the efficiency of the motor learning process. | |
- Perception of difficulty | - Greater perception of the difficulty could lead to a reduced ability to generate motor representation and thereby worsen motor learning. | |
Motivational–Emotional
MI *** AO *** |
- Motivation (reasons, intention, and desires) | - Higher motivation levels could lead directly to a better predisposition towards the learning process and, therefore, on the effects of movement representation techniques. |
- Fear of movement | - Higher kinesiophobia levels can lead to an interruption of the motion representation process, thereby impairing the motor learning process. | |
Direct modulation
MI *** AO * |
- Ability to create motor images | - The effectiveness of MI might depend on the ability to create motor images. This aspect can be influenced by other domains. |
- Synchronization | - Greater time congruence between physical practice and motion representation could facilitate the motor learning process. | |
- Activity of the autonomous nervous system | - Greater neurovegetative activity could indicate higher neurophysiological activity of the sensoriomotor cortical–subcortical networks, indicating greater effort dedicated to the task, greater attention, and less fatigue, thereby favoring motor learning. |
* low susceptibility; ** moderate susceptibility; *** high susceptibility. Abbreviations: AO, action observation; MI, motor imagery.