Preparation process facilitation of a motor task through imagery practice with adolescents who have mental retardation.

The use of imagery practice to facilitate the preparation of adolescents with mild mental retardation to perform a motor task was explored. Thirty-two subjects with mental retardation and an equal number of subjects without retardation performed a response-type task that included reaction time (RT) and movement time (MT) components. Catch trials were used to manipulate the preparation levels of several experimental groups. Results suggest that with marked preparation decrements, imagery practice facilitated the execution of the RT component. Under certain conditions imagery practice also helped performance of the MT component. These findings indicate that the potential use of imagery practice to enhance motor performance should be investigated more extensively.