motor learning ch. 7-10

Experimental Approach: using variables common to entire group to assess performance. Differential approach: used to examine individual abilities or differences; factors that make people different from each other.

is a fundamental characteristic that tends to underlie particular skills; ability is largely inherited genetically and is not modifiable by practice.

is the process of using people's abilities to estimate their probably success in various occupations or sports.

Abilities are stable characteristics derived through genetics&maturation and are not affected greatly by practice. Example: visual activity, color vision, body type, reaction speed, manual dexterity, and kinesthetic awareness.

All have people have abilities, but strength/precision varies among them. A combo of abilities is required for performing any given motor task. Even w/ lots of experience, a person lacking fundamental abilities required for particular task will never achieve high level of performance.

Developed w/ practice. Modified w/ practice. Vast in quantity. Depend on different subsets of abilities.

Individual differences in skills have these characteristics: Differences tend to be stable from attempt to attempt, differences endure across time, differences on a single measurement are often not sufficient for establishing individual differences.

abilities, attitudes, body types, culture, psychological factors, learning style, maturation, motivation, experience.

Abilities: are inherited traits, are stable and enduring, number perhaps 50, each underlies may different skills. Skills: are developed w/ practice, are easily modified w/ practice, are essentially countless in number, each depends on several abilities.

An outdated view; all motor performances are based on a single, global ability called general motor ability. A person w/ strong general motor ability should be good at all motor tasks. For ex: one w/ high degree of speed, coordination, agility should have high success in a variety of sport skills (tennis, handball, fencing, soccer)

Many specific, distinct, independent motor abilities comprise the basis for every motor performance. Franklin Henry proposed this. Contradicts general ability hypothesis. Research shows low correlation w/ tasks that may appear to be similar. Throwing a ball vs throwing a javelin...if these skills have no abilities (or few) in common, then transfer will be low. Two skills w/ only minor differences (throwing 10 m for accuracy and throwing 15 m for accuracy) can correlate strongly.

Scientists have argued that there are many abilities, each w/ a relatively narrow group of tasks that it supports. There appear to be many motor abilities that should be able to account for motor performances.

Effective classification allows the one to do the following: -Ensure learning principles in use are appropriate for the skill taught -Give learner more assistance w/ underlying features of the skill important for movement control. -Advanced training based on the match of abilities of the person involved in the task.

Attempts at prediction involve these components: Understanding abilities that underlie the criterion task. Estimating strength of these as indications of their future capabilities in the criterion task. Estimating potential skill on the criterion task based on present information about the applicants.

Although an individual might have proper abilities for novice performance, this often is not the proper pattern of abilities required for expert performance. Selecting people b/c they are good as novices will capture only a part of the job of prediction. Most knowledge about abilities is based on relatively novice-level performances. Little is known about the abilities that underlie very high-level performances, making the task of predicting them particularly difficult.

This shift of abilities w/ practice and experience can be a problem if you attempt to select performers on the basis of their performance.

All people have the same abilities. Patterns of strengths & weaknesses provide basis for prediction in determining success/failure. Pattern of abilities is only one of many relevant factors for performance.

Abilities and success are difficult to predict in early movement performance. -Strong ability for novice performance may not mature to high proficiency, even after extensive practice. Abilities required early in learning are somewhat different than those utilized in later stages of learning. High-level skills, stability, and expert patterns of abilities come later. Predicting abilities is largely a guessing game.

People tend to repeat activities in which they are successful. So...it is often difficult to determine if person has strong ability or good skills due to practice.

Generally, not very effective in motor behavior because...Underlying abilities in motor performances have not been studied systematically and are not well understood. The number of underlying abilities is probably large, requiring that many abilities be measured. Pattern of relevant abilities shifts w/ practice and experience, making prediction of expert performances difficult.

Expose children to a broad variety of movement activities. Watch how well they do w/ different types of mvmt and try to determine their strengths. Stay flexible and allow child to do what he/she likes the best.

Should expect different abilities and know that performance will be affected. Get people to improve skills where abilities are not strong. Use task analysis.

Breaking down skill into key components. ODP Model for Athletic Success...."Eastern block" countries have spent decades taking athletes very young, and investing yrs of training to have the best...gymnastics, powerlifters, etc...

No battery of tests have been found to account for more than about 50% of the abilities needed for successful performance.

As a guide for determining critical components of a skill set. Estimate calculator of ability for a skill set. Took for practice organization and content...--Help identify "weak" links in performance components as well as strengths. ALT can be used after Task Analysis to look at effectiveness of teaching!

-Job or performance analysis -Learning analysis -Cognitive task analysis -Content or subject matter analysis -Activity analysis -Procedural: outcomes based but w/ a strict sequence that must be followed. (Balancing a checkbook, changing a tire)

Classifying tasks according to learning outcomes. Inventory tasks: identifying tasks or generating a list of tasks. Selecting tasks: prioritizing tasks and choosing those that are more feasible and appropriate if there is an abundance of tasks to train. Decomposing tasks: identifying and describing the components of the tasks, goals, or objectives. Sequencing tasks and subtasks: defining the sequence in which instruction should occur that will best facilitate learning.

Procedural Task Analysis: for procedural skills. Hierarchical or Prerequisite Analysis: for intellectual skills. Information processing analysis: for procedural and cognitive tasks. Cluster Analysis of verbal information: for verbal information skills.

Improved performance does not, by itself, define learning. But...is an indication that learning may have occurred. Motor learning is a set of processes associated w/ practice or experience leading to relatively permanent gains in the capability for skilled performance. Give different cues to different learners. Novice vs master learns differently.

Learning results from PRACTICE or experience. Learning is NOT DIRECTLY OBSERVABLE. Learning changes are INFERRED from certain performance changes. Learning involves a SET OF PROCESSES in the central nervous system. Learning produces ACQUIRED capability for skilled performance. Learning changes are relatively PERMANENT, not transitory.

plots of individual or average performance against practice trials (line graph). increase or decrease w/ practice, depending on the particular way the task is scored. The law of practice says that improvements are rapid at first and much slower later in practice.

Performance curves are not learning curves. Skewness, variation in performance not accounted for, individual scores lost.

Practice can have numerous effects on the learner: -Relatively permanent effects that persist across many days, even years. -Temporary effects that vanish with time or a change in conditions (anxiety, motivation, fatigue). Simultaneous temporary and relatively permanent effects. Context (skill itself), Environment, Practice Design, and Habits. Determine what variables impact learning vs performance--A transfer design can analyze whether a change that improves performance in practice also improves learning.

Positive transfer occurs when a treatment (practice on another skill) facilitates performance over and above no practice. Negative transfer occurs when a treatment ('' ") degrades performance in comparison to those that received no additional practice.

Specific transfer is a useful measure in cases in which the criterion for learning is performance on a specific task....Measured by delayed retention tests on that task. For generalized transfer, transfer to relatively different activities is the goal...Measured some transfer test performed in the future that may involve a different task.

Near transfer is transfer of learning from one task or setting to another that is very similar. Far transfer is transfer of learning from one task to another very different task or setting. Both are types of generalized transfer.

Specificity of learning suggests that what you learn depends largely on what you practice. -Practicing in a particular environment or workspace often leads to better performance mainly in that workspace. -The sensory feedback resulting from performance during specific types of practice becomes part of the learned representation for skill.

The learner who attempts to perform as well as possible in practice tends to be inhibited from modifying movements from attempt to attempt. Providing both practice sessions and test sessions during practice can help overcome the detriment to learning.

Improved capability to perform some skill on future demand. Improved perceptual skills. Improved attention through reduced capacity demands and reduced effect or competition. Improved motor programs. Improved error detection.

Fitt's Stages: -specifically designed to consider perceptual-motor learning. -heavy emphasis on how the cognitive processes invested in motor performance change as a function of practice. Bernstein: -identified stages of learning from a combined motor control and biomechanical perspective.

Questions to answer: goal identification, performance evaluation, what to do, when to do it. Stages: Beginner or Verbal-Cognitive stage. Verbal and cognitive abilities dominate and verbalize information is useful. Gains in proficiency in this stage are very rapid and large, indicating that more effective strategies for performance are being discovered. *a lot of self talk, might not actually hear it. Not a very long stage.

The learners focus shifts to organizing more effective movement patterns. -skills requiring quick movements (tennis stroke) the learner begins to build a motor program to accomplish the movement requirements. Slower movements (balancing in gymnastics) the learner constructs ways to use movement-produced feedback. Inconsistency gradually decreases--- -closed skill movements begin to be more stereotypic. -open-skill movement become more adaptable. Enhanced movement efficiency reduces energy costs, and self-talk becomes less important for performance. Learners being to monitor their own feedback and detect their errors--begin to identify environmental cues with movement.

Associated w/ attainment of expert performance. Decreased attention demanded by both perceptual and motor processes frees the individual to perform simultaneous higher-order cognitive activities. Self-confidence increases and the capability to detect and correct one's own errors becomes more fine-tuned. *going w/o thinking..

Initial problem: what do I do when I have so many choices (varying degrees of freedom) Bernstein's solution: reduce the movement of non-essential or redundant body parts in the initial stage of learning by freezing degrees of freedom. -possible b/c there appears to be a predictable pattern of muscle activation.

Learner attempts to improve performance by releasing some of the degrees of freedom that had initially been frozen. Particularly useful in tasks that require power or speed. -the degrees of freedom that have been released could allow for faster and greater accumulation of forces.

The performer learns to exploit the passive dynamics of the body-essentially, the energy and motion that come for free w/ the help of physics. The movement becomes maximally skilled in terms of effectiveness (achieving the result w/ maximum assuredness) and efficiency (minimum outlay of energy).

Neither was meant to describe learning as a series of discrete, nonlinear, and unidirectional stages. Fitts considered performance change to be regressive as well as progressive. Task differences also play an important role in the stage views of both Fitts and Bernstein.

Long-term retention depends largely on the nature of the task. -Discrete tasks (especially those w/ a relatively large cognitive component) are forgotten relatively quickly. -Continuous tasks are retained very well over long period of no practice. -The amount of original practice will influence the relative amount of retention for these tasks.

Refers to a specific type of retention deficit due to the loss of an activity set. -Set is a collection of psychological activities, states, or adjustment and processes that are appropriate and support performance while an activity is ongoing.

Transfer between skills depends on the skills' movement or perceptual similarity. The concept of similarity among skills involves several classes of common features: movement patterning, perceptual elements, and strategic or conceptual elements.

Complex skills inhibit presenting all aspects of the skill at one for practice. Solution: divide the task into meaningful units that can be isolated for separate part practice w/ the goal of integrating the units into whole skill for later performance. Sometimes called Part-Whole Practice strategy.

For very slow, serial tasks with no component interaction, part practice on the difficult elements is very efficient. For very brief, programmed actions, practice on the parts in isolation is seldom useful and can be detrimental to learning. The more the components of a task interact w/ each other, the less the effectiveness of part practice.

A stimulator is a practice device designed to mimic features of a real-world task. -Are often very elaborate, sophisticated, and expensive but don't need to be. -Good when skill is expensive or dangerous, where facilities are limited, or where real practice is not feasible.

Fidelity is the degree to which the simulator mimics the criterion task. Physical fidelity is the degree to which the surface features of a stimulation and the criterion task are identical. Psychological fidelity is the degree to which the behaviors produced in a stimulator are identical to the behaviors required by the criterion task.

Expertise is the result of intense practice for a minimum of ten years. The amount of deliberate practice (optimal instruction, high intensity, work-like practice for hours each day, personalized training) and domain specificity are paramount.

Motivation for learning Instructions Demonstrations Mental Practice and imagery

Intrinsic motivation for learning concerns the learner's internalized drive Learning a skill can be influenced in these ways: -Goal setting: being encouraged to commit oneself to a specific, challenging goal is strongly motivating. -Augmented feedback: can provide a boost to motor learning, even if the feedback is not entirely true. -Self-regulation of practice: providing some control over the learning environment is a factor thought to influence motivation and enhance learning.

Directing attentional focus: for most performers, instructing them to pay attention to the intended result of an action produces more skilled performance than an instruction to pay attention to aspects of the movement itself. Demonstrations and modeling: The decision about how to maximize the effectiveness of a model seems to depend on several factors.

Learner thinks about the skills being learned, rehearses each of the steps sequentially, and imagines doing the actions that would result in achieving the goal. Mental practice does contribute to learning, though how is unclear.

Massed practice schedule: amount of rest between practice trials is relatively short. Rest between trials is often less than the time for a trial. Distributed practice schedule: Duration of rest between practice trials is relatively long. Time in practice is often less than the time at rest. For discrete tasks, there is no evidence that reducing the rest time through massed practice degrades learning. For continuous tasks, distribution of practice has both a positive practice and a positive learning effect.

The learner acquires a set of rules, called schemas, that relate the surface features to the parameter values necessary to produce those actions. Whenever a movement is made, the learner records the result as well as the parameter that was used for the GMP. Eventually these relationships are generalized into a schema.

Variable practice schedule: many variations of a class of actions are practiced, different versions of same GMP. Constant practice: only a single variation of a given class of tasks is experienced. Learners acquire schemas when they practice; variable practice enhances their development, allowing more effective novel task performance in the future.

Especial Skills: Very specialized or specific to time and place (basketball jump shot). Varied practice probably not best approach. In some cases, a single skill receiving lots of practice results in the development of a single, specific capability that is different from a more generalized capability (free throw vs general shots in basketball). Spacing of Practice: Variable practice scheduled in blocks of trials conferred small or no advantages when compared w/ constant-practice conditions. Studies in which variable practice was scheduled in a random order resulted in rather large advantages compared to constant practice.

Blocked practice schedule -practice one aspect of a skill or technique over and over until it is correct. -biggest difference in order of tasks. -need different GMPs -low contextual interference. -advantages: early in learning; fine tuning; technique change. Random practice schedule -practice trials on several different tasks are mixed, or interleaved, across the practice period. -high contextual interference

Random: learner performs different tasks that require different GMPs--forgetting--"relearning" Varied: same tasks with varied sets of rules or schemas for specific parameters of the same task. Promotes schema development. Combo is probably best for most skills.*

Climbing: Blocked--same route every time. Random--change route every time. Golf: Blocked--hit a bucket of balls at the range; no or little variation in club selection and tee position. Random--change clubs, change targets, force, trajectory ever times (play the features of the course, not the par) Baseball: Blocked--45 pitches; 15 each in same order (curve, fast, change up). Random--45 pitches, unpredictable, arbitrary order.

The idea that frequent switching among tasks (eg random practice) renders the tasks more distinct from each other and more meaningful, resulting in stronger memory representations; it is one explanation of the contextual-interference effect.

The hypothesis that frequent task switching in random practice causes forgetting of the planning done on the previous trial, therefore leading to more next-trial planning and resulting in stronger memory representations; it is a hypothesis that explains the contextual interference effect.

The beneficial effects of random practice are not universal. Guadagnoli and Lee (2004) reviewed the varieties of evidence and suggested that random practice is likely to be least effective when the task demands are sufficiently high that performers have a difficult time producing even a single trial of the behavior.

Hybrid schedules: some researchers have found that moderate levels of random practice are beneficial for performance and learning. Practice contingencies: this schedule is more sensitive to individual differences where the difficulty of the task and the decision to repeat the same task or switch to an easier or more difficult task depend on the performance success of the individual.