Quantifying movement imagery ability: An open-source platform for behavioral assessments

Measuring how well an individual can imagine performing movements is of considerable interest to researchers, clinicians, and practitioners. However, quantifying movement imagery ability is a remarkable challenge due to its covert and multidimensional nature. While self-report questionnaires and measurements of neural activity have been proposed as tools to quantify movement imagery ability, these approaches face significant limitations. In the present manuscript, we propose that objective behavioral measurements (i.e., specific tasks) provide a promising avenue for the assessment of movement imagery ability. To this aim, we have developed an online platform (https://movementimageryability.github.io/) for the archiving and sharing of free, open-source tasks to examine movement imagery ability, alongside self-report questionnaires. This tutorial introduces the first behavioral tasks included, assessing aspects of generation, maintenance, manipulation and inspection of movement imagery (i.e., Chronometric Radial Fitts’ Task, Imagined Finger Sequence Task, Hand Laterality Judgement Task, Mental Body Rotation Task, Final Position Judgement Task). Further, we provide guidelines on the use of the tasks and the platform, and on contributing to the expansion of the platform and the collection of reference norms. The platform aims to enable valid and reliable assessments of individual movement imagery abilities in a standardized, open-source, and efficient way.