Ball Throwing Without a Ball: Pantomimed Motor Execution Primes the Imagination That an Object is Traveling the Required Distance.

This study used a pantomime paradigm to investigate whether simulated motor actions are generally effective in estimating the force necessary to accurately drive an object toward the required target. Eleven subjects were asked to vertically throw a rubber ball toward three different targets and then catch it, all while sitting in a chair (ACT). In addition, they performed the same task under a condition whereby mechanical interactions with the rubber ball were minimized. This condition encompassed two different modes: pantomime (PANTO) and imagination without swings (IMAGE). PANTO reproduced the motor patterns observed during ACT. The maximum amplitudes and maximum accelerations of the upward swing movements scaled well in linear proportion to the target distances, although the maximum accelerations were significantly smaller than those in the ACT trials. IMAGE led to the overestimation of the ball's flight time, which is represented by the release-catch intervals. PANTO significantly reduced this tendency. These results suggest that pantomimed motor execution can prime more realistic mental simulations of object motion when compared with purely imagined motor execution.