Mental chronometry: Do imagined times merely relate to task duration?

Roberts, J ORCID: 0000-0001-6204-5325, Owen, R and Wakefield, C (2025) Mental chronometry: Do imagined times merely relate to task duration? Journal of Motor Behavior. ISSN 0022-2895

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Abstract

Prolonged movement time as a function of task difficulty (as defined by the Index of Difficulty [ID]) can be equally prevalent within executed and imagined movements ─ something referred to as the mental chronometry effect. This effect has been leveraged as support for functional equivalence, where an internal representation can be shared for execution and imagery. However, times tend to rise exponentially more for imagined, compared to executed, movements, which could be attributed to the time spent within a task. Fifteen participants attempted execution and imagery of a reciprocal aiming movement between two targets that assumed different levels of ID (4, 5, 6 bits). They did this either over 3 or 5 cycles of movement to generate short- and long-duration movements, respectively. Mean times and time-ID slope/gradient coefficients revealed that the time within imagery was generally no longer than execution. However, the rise in time as a function of ID tended to be even greater when undertaking 3 compared to 5 cycles within imagery, but not execution. Overall, these findings may counter the suggestion that time spent within imagery is positively related to duration. However, further research is perhaps warranted to help formulate broader recommendations for imagery across different durations.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1106 Human Movement and Sports Sciences; 1702 Cognitive Sciences; Experimental Psychology; 31 Biological sciences; 32 Biomedical and clinical sciences; 52 Psychology
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC1200 Sports Medicine
Divisions:	Sport and Exercise Sciences
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
Date of acceptance:	19 June 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	8 July 2025
Date Deposited:	08 Jul 2025 15:22
Last Modified:	08 Jul 2025 15:30
DOI or ID number:	10.1080/00222895.2025.2525907
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26738

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