ReviewFrontiers in human neuroscience2017
Does Motor Simulation Theory Explain the Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Motor Imagery? A Critical Review.
Review in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Brain computer interfaces for cognitive enhancement in older people - challenges and applications: a systematic review.BMC geriatrics · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Motor imagery enhances early rehabilitation in patients with high kinesiophobia after total knee arthroplasty: a randomized controlled trial.Journal of rehabilitation medicine · 2025Trial
- Shared mechanisms underlie mental imagery and motor planning.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- All Is Relative-A Call for Considering "Physiologically Informed" Control Conditions to Improve the Mechanistic Understanding of the Effects of Physical Exercise on Cognition.Scandinavian journal of psychology · 2026Review
- Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation Inhibits Contralesional Parietal and Occipital Activity During Imagined Movements After Stroke.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- Defining imagination: a conceptual mapping and provisional model.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Teaching medical undergraduates Skills for Eye Examination: Is Flipped Classroom with Mental Rehearsal as Effective as Face-to-Face Teaching?Perspectives on medical education · 2026Article
- Motor imagery as a cognitive mechanism in interventions for children with developmental coordination disorder: a narrative review.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Review
- EEG coherence signatures of sport-specific motor imagery in elite freestyle skiing aerials athletes.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Regional gray matter volume is associated with motor imagery performance in children with and without developmental coordination disorder.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Evidence of Embodiment-based changes in older Adult Language.Psychological research · 2025Review
- Even with exposure to errors, motor imagery cannot update internal models.Psychological research · 2025Article
- Mutual human-robot understanding for a robot-enhanced society: the crucial development of shared embodied cognition.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2025Review
- Can the left hand benefit from being right? The influence of body side on perceived grasping ability.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2024Article
- Why motor imagery is not really motoric: towards a re-conceptualization in terms of effect-based action control.Psychological research · 2024Review
- Enhancing motor imagery practice using synchronous action observation.Psychological research · 2024Review
- Neural Simulation of Actions for Serpentine Robots.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Neural correlates of motor imagery and execution in real-world dynamic behavior: evidence for similarities and differences.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Article
- The effect of action observation and motor imagery on jumping and perceived performance.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Motor simulation theory (MST; Jeannerod, 2001) purports to explain how various action-related cognitive states relate to actual motor execution. Specifically, it proposes that motor imagery (MI; imagining an action without executing the movements involved) shares certain mental representations and mechanisms with action execution, and hence, activates similar neural pathways to those elicited during the latter process. Furthermore, MST postulates that MI works by rehearsing neural motor systems off-line via a hypothetical simulation process. In this paper, we review evidence cited in support of MST and evaluate its efficacy in understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying MI. In doing so, we delineate the precise postulates of simulation theory and clarify relevant terminology. Based on our cognitive-level analysis, we argue firstly that the psychological mechanisms underlying MI are poorly understood and require additional conceptual and empirical analysis. In addition, we identify a number of potentially fruitful lines of inquiry for future investigators of MST and MI.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.