抄録
This study investigated the effects of verbalization of mimetic-phoneme on the motor-memory in infants. Eighteen (Experiment 1) and Twenty (Experiment 2) normal 5-year-old subjects took part in the experiments. The task was to move the linear positioning slide horizontally away from the body with the prefered arm, with or without the utterance of mimetic or non-mimetic phoneme, at a distance of 1/3 or 2/3 of a fully arm-extended length (criterion movement), and to reproduce its movement as accurate as possible at 30, 90 and 150 seconds later. During the experiments each subject was blindfolded. Two experiments mainly revealed the followings: 1) Verbalization of phoneme prompted the reproduction of the criterion movement, regardless of the person uttering; 2) Verbalization of the mimetic phoneme prompted the movement reproduction better than that of a non-mimetic phoneme. These results indicated that the mimetic phoneme would easily synchronize with the kinesthetic information in younger children. The implication of these results for the rehabilitation of children with physical handicap was discussed.
