Addressing the Similarity and Differences of Physical and Mental Practice

The purpose of this study was to examine the similarity and/or differences of underlying mechanisms of physical and mental practice. For this purpose 60 person were participated in this study which randomly divided into three physical practice, physical practice and mental part practice, and physical practice and whole mental practice groups. The goal task in this study was a gymnastic routine. It was argued that if physical practice and mental practice have similar underlying mechanisms then mental part practice should be more effective for learning this task than whole mental practice. According to the grouping, participants practiced the task for two days (40 trials each). 72 hours later retention test was performed. Results showed that the mental part practice was more effective for learning this task than mental whole practice and performance of this group was lower than pure physical practice group. These results showed the similarity of underlying mechanisms of physical and mental practice.