Is Locomotor Distance Estimation Guided by Visual Imagery?

Abstract

70 subjects were tested for their visual subscale scores on the Movement Imagery Questionnaire and also for their ability to walk, without vision, to a previously viewed target location 9 m away. Imagery ability was hypothesized to correlate with accuracy of “blind” target-directed walking which the literature suggests, without empirical support, is imagery-dependent. No support for this hypothesis was found. Low, medium, and high imagers showed no differences in ability to reproduce target distance accurately or consistently by walking the estimated distance without further visual updating. The results call into question whether task performance is imagery-based or whether subjects use alternative strategies to approach the target.