HK: Motor Learning and Performance (Chapter 9)

Fidelity

the degree to which the simulator mimics the criterion task

Perceptual Elements

"Similarity" is also evident in the numerous perceptual elements underlying many tasks. Learning to react appropriately to such cues in one situation facilitates transfer to other situations in which the perceptual elements are similar.

Specificity of Learning

What you learn depends largely on what you practice. Specificity effects are wide-ranging.

Principles of Part Practice

1. For very slow, serial tasks with no component interaction, part practice on the difficult elements is very efficient. 2. For very brief, programmed actions, practice on the parts in isolation is seldom useful and can even be detrimental to learning. 3. The more the components of a task interact with each other, the less the effectiveness of part practice

Fitts' Stage 3: Autonomous Stage

After considerable practice, the learner gradually enters the stage usually associated with the attainment of expert performance - perceptual anticipation is high, which speeds the processing of environmental information. The system generally programs longer movement sequences; this means that fewer programs need to be organized and initiated during a given interval of time, which decreases the load on attention-demanding movement initiation processes. The decreased attention demanded by both perceptual and motor processes frees the individual to perform simultaneous higher cognitive activities, such as making higher-level decisions about strategies in sport, expressing emotion and affect in music and dance, and dealing with stress and chaos in emergency care activities. Self-talk about the actual muscular performance is almost absent, and performance often seems to suffer if self-analysis is attempted. However, self-talk could continue in terms of higher-order strategic aspects. Self-confidence increases and the capability to detect and correct one's own errors becomes more fine tuned. Performance improvements in the autonomous stage are slow because the learner is already very capable when this stage begins.

Test Session

After several minutes in the practice session, the instructor could announce a switch to a "test session," in which the next five attempts are treated as a test. In the test session the learner is to perform as well as possible, using the best estimate gained so far of the movement pattern for the most proficient performance. After the test session, the learner has some ideas of his progress and can return to the practice mode to continue searching for more effective movement patterning. Such tests could be formally evaluated and graded, but they can also be effective if given only for the student's own information. Evaluating progress by asking learners to compile their own test scores is an excellent method to help assess their own progress; it is both motivating and educational.

Fitts' Stage 2: Fixation Stage

Also called the associative stage or motor stage. Most of the cognitive problems dealing with the environmental cues that need to be attended to and the actions that need to be made have been solved. So, now the learner's focus shifts to organizing more effective movement patterns to produce the action. In skills requiring quick movements, such as a tennis stroke, the learner begins to "build" a motor program to accomplish the movement requirements. Several factors change markedly during the fixation stage, associated with more effective movement patterns. Performance improves steadily. Some inconsistency from trial to trial is seen as the learner attempts new solutions to movement problems. Inconsistency gradually decreases. The movements involving closed skills begin to be more stereotypic and those involving open skills become more adaptable to the changing environment. Enhanced movement efficiency reduces energy costs, and self-talk becomes less important for performance. Performers discover environmental regularities to serve as effective cues for timing. Anticipation develops rapidly, making movements smoother and less rushed. In addition, learners begin to monitor their own feedback and detect their own errors. This stage generally lasts much longer than the cognitive stage.

Bernstein's Stage 2: Release Degrees of Freedom

As control of a minimum number of degrees of freedom in stage 1 begins to result in some initial successes, the typical learner attempts to improve performance by releasing some of the degrees of freedom that had initially been "frozen." This release of degrees of freedom would seem to be particularly useful in tasks that require power or speed, as the degrees of freedom that have been released could allow for faster and greater accumulation of forces.

Major Goal of Practice

Effective performance, which can be thought of as developing the capability to perform some skill on future demand.

Perceptual Skills

Expertise is quite specific to the nature of the skill that has been practiced. Experts tend to seek out more specific and narrowly focused information in a perceptual display and to pick up that information much earlier in the action than non experts.

Fundamental Movement Patterning

If practice is given at one variant of the class of movements sharing the same general pattern, then the learner should be able to transfer the learning to any other variant using this same pattern.

Specificity of Practice

In general, specificity of learning suggests that what you learn depends largely on what you practice. Practicing in a particular environment or work space often leads to better performance mainly in that work space. So, practicing in competition leads to better performance mainly in that work space, right? The sensory feedback resulting from performance during specific types of practice becomes part of the learned skill

Progressive Part Practice

In this method the parts of a complex skill are presented separately, but the parts are integrated into larger and larger parts, and finally into the whole, as soon as they are acquired.

Practice Sessions

Instruct the learners simply to avoid repeating what they did earlier. Tell the learner to try different styles of movement control to discover some more effective pattern of action. You can guide the learning by suggesting specific ways to alter the movement, helping the learner eliminate inappropriate patterns. The learner should know that performance quality is not critical during this practice period and that the only goal is to discover some new way to execute the skill that will be more effective in the long term.

Repetition

Invokes the idea of repeating a movement , and again, and again, and so on. The concept brings to mind the idea that repetitious movements somehow "grove" or "stamp in" a memory, with more repetitions leading to a deeper groove or more durable stamp in memory. The metaphor causes one to think (incorrectly, in our view) of learning as a concept similar to muscle hypertrophy, which results from repetitious exercise.

Retention Tests

Long-term retention depends largely on the nature of the task - discrete tasks (especially those with a relatively large cognitive component, light switch order) are forgotten relatively quickly. Continuous tasks (i.e. using an aircraft type stick and rudders) are retained very well over long periods of no practice . The amount of original practice will have a lot to do with the relative amount of retention for these tasks. But, in general, continuous tasks, like riding a bicycle, are retained for much longer periods of time than are discrete tasks.

LIMITATIONS OF FITTS' AND BERNSTEIN'S STAGES

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

Attention

One benefit of practice is the reduced attention that is demanded by tasks that have been well learned. Interference arises when one effector has a movement goal or pattern that is different from the goal (or movement pattern) of the other effector.

Simulator

Practice device designed to mimic features of a real world task Are often very elaborate, sophisticated, and extensive but don't need to be Can be an important part of an instructional program, especially when the skill is expensive or dangerous, where facilities are limited, or where real practice is not feasible

Way to separate conflicting practice practice goals

Provide two fundamentally different activities during practice - practice sessions and test sessions

Psychological Fidelity

Refers to the degree to which the behaviors and processes produced in the simulator replicate those required by the criterion task.

Physical Fidelity

Refers to the degree to which the physical or surface features of the simulation and criterion tasks themselves are identical.

Reinstatement of Set

Reinstatement of set before undertaking performance can eliminate much of the warm-up decrement that accrues over a retention interval, even a brief one.

Error-detection Capability

Represents another goal of practice. The learner who is able to detect and analyze her errors independently and thus make corrections "in the moment" will be far more skilled. This error-detection and correction capability tends to make the learner self-sufficient, which is one overall goal of practice.

Strategic and Conceptual Similarities

Similar strategies, rules, guidelines, or concepts are present in many different activities. Overall, the concept of "similarity" among skills involves several classes of common features - 1. Common movement patterning 2. Common perceptual elements 3. Common strategic or conceptual elements

Transfer of Part Practice to Whole Performance/Practice

Some skills are enormously complex; in such situations the coach cannot present all aspects of the skill at once for practice An approach is to divide the task into meaningful units that can be isolated for separate part practice with the goal of integrating the units into the whole skill for later performance

Transfer

Sometimes called generalization. Important goal of practice. Refers to the idea that learning acquired during practice of a given task can be applied to or transferred to other task situations.

Fitts' Stages

Specifically designed to consider perceptual-motor learning, with emphasis on both the perceptual and motor components involving skill acquisition. This perspective places heavy emphasis on how the cognitive processes invested in motor performance change as a function of practice.

Bernstein's Stages

Stages of learning from a combined motor control and biomechanical perspective.

Forgetting

The "fate" of motor skills after a period of time during which no further practice is undertaken Discrete tasks (especially those with a relatively large cognitive component) are forgotten relatively quickly Continuous tasks are retained very well over long periods of no practice The amount of original practice will influence the relative amount of retention for these tasks

Warm-Up Decrement

The initial depression in motor activity at the very start of a performance represents a different kind of retention deficit. The learner typically suffers a relatively large performance decrement and is temporarily prevented from performing at his maximum potential. This disturbance to performance is eliminated quickly once a few trials of practice are experienced. Considered a psychological factor that is brought on by the passage of time away from a task and is eliminated when the performer begins to perform a few trials again.

Bernstein's Stage 1: Reduce Degrees of Freedom

The initial problem facing the learner is what to do with all of the possible degrees of freedom of movement that are available for the body. A single "degree of freedom" refers to just one (out of all of the ways) in which the various muscles and joints are free to move. Bernstein considered that the solution to the so-called "degrees of freedom problem" (i.e. how the system control all of the degrees of freedom) was to reduce the movement of nonessential or redundant body parts in the initial stage of learning - in essence, by freezing these degrees of freedom.

Retention Interval

The interval of time when there has been no practice

Fitts' Stage 1: Cognitive Stage

The learner's first problem is cognitive, largely verbal (or verbalizable); the dominant questions concern goal identification, performance evaluation, what to do (and what not to do), when to do it, how to do it, and a host of other things. As a result, verbal and cognitive abilities dominate at this stage. Figuring out what to look at in the environment (or listen to, or feel, and so on) and generating an appropriate movement attempt are critical. Instructions, demonstrations, film clips, and other verbalizable information are also particularly useful in this stage. One goal of instruction is to have the learner transfer information from past learning to these initial skill levels. Often, several previously learned movements can be sequenced together to approximate the desire skill and can provide a start for later learning. Gains in proficiency in this stage are very rapid and large, indicating that more effective strategies for performance are being discovered. It is not of much concern that performance at this stage is halting, jerky, uncertain, and poorly timed to the external environment; this is merely the starting point for later proficiency gains. Verbal activity is effective for this initial stage, though, facilitating a rough approximation of the skill and will likely drop out later.

Most effective learning occurs when...

The most effective learning occurs when a repetition activates as many of the individual components of the system as possible. In this way, a repetition is successful to the degree that it engages the entire conceptual model.

Bernstein's Stage 3: Exploit Passive Dynamics

The performer learns to exploit the passive dynamics of the body - the energy and motion that come "for free" with help of physics (such as gravity, spring-like characteristics of muscle, and momentum). The movement becomes maximally skilled in terms of effectiveness (achieving the end result with maximum assuredness) and efficiency (minimum outlay of energy)

Bernstein's View of "Practice as Repetition"

The process of practice towards the achievement of new motor habits essentially consists in the gradual success of a search for optimal motor solutions to the appropriate problems. Because of this, practice, when properly undertaken, does not consist in simply repeating the...solution of a motor problem time after time, but rather in the process of solving this problem again and again by techniques which we changed and perfected from repetition and repetition. It is already apparent here that, in many cases, "practice is a particular type of repetition without repetition, and that motor training, if this position is ignored, is merely mechanical repetition by rote, a method which has been discredited in pedagogy for some time."

Conflict from "Doing Your Best"

This generates two conflicting practice goals: 1. Performing as well as possible in practice vs. 2. Learning as much as possible by attempting to change movement patterning

Set

When referring to warm-up decrement, has a very specific meaning. Is a collection of psychological activities, states, or adjustment and processes (for example, the target of attentional focus, one's perceptual focus, and postural adjustments).

benefits of practice

improved perceptual skills improved capability to perform some skill on future demand—Yes, that's competition reduced demands on attentional capacity reduced effector competition consolidation of smaller motor programs into larger ones improved error detection