KIN 3513 Final Dalecki
Novice vs Expert
changes in underlying abilities as the learner progresses from novice to expert some abilities drop out and are replaced by others, whereas other abilities remain
Assessment of Learning
proceed with caution easy to make incorrect inferences -therapy -sport you are accountable things may not be as they appear
Applying the Principles: Baseball Batting
timeline of events as a baseball leaves the pitcher's hand and arrives at plate for a pitch (90 mph): -a fast swing (140 ms) has 20 ms less MT than a slower swing (160 ms) -provides 20 ms more time for movement preparation/anticipation -can improve temporal and spatial accuracy and force of a hit
Speed-Accuracy Skills Fitts' Law predicts movement time (MT) motor skills such as:
-dart throwing -peg-board manipulation task (used in physical rehab assessment and training) -reaching and grasping containers of different sizes -moving a cursor on a computer screen
Individual Differences
-differences tend to be stable from attempt to attempt -differences endure across time -differences on a single measurement are often not sufficient for establishing these
Assessing Learning by Observing Practice Performance
-performance curves (line graph describing performance by plotting performance measures across practice trials or periods of time; provide evidence of improvement and consistency)
Assessing Learning: Retention Tests
-tests of a practiced skill that a learned performs following an interval of tine after practice has ceased -length of no-practice interval is arbitrary -purpose: assess how permanent the performance level is achieved during practice -testing persistence, testing consistency -ex: indoor golf putting task, make it stop as close as possible from 150 cm distance; after blocks, PTC group received false positive feedback relative to previous block of trials
Transfer of Learning
-transfer, closely related to learning is seen when practice on one task contributes to performance capability in another task -important in many instructional situations -complex skills may be broken down into simpler elements for beginning learners -conditions under which practice is conducted different than the conditions in a real situation (ex: safety reasons)
Categories of Motor Abilities continued
1. Perceptual-motor abilities -RT, manual dexterity, finger dexterity, arm-hand steadiness, multi-limb coordination 2. Physical proficiency abilities -explosive strength, dynamic strength, extent flexibility, stamina 3. list is not exhaustive, but these abilities will ideally fit into these two categories
Motor Ability
1. general motor ability: all motor abilities are highly related, there is a single global ability -all around athlete or all around nonathlete 2. specificity hypothesis: there are many specific, independent motor abilities -some soccer players are bad golfers
Performance Characteristics of Skill Learning
1. improvement: desired performance in outcome goal 2. consistency: skill can be performed over and over again and repeated in the future 3. persistence: motor skill performance does not change over time or by the change in conditions 4. adaptability: reaction to change in environment 5. stability: resistance to perturbation from the environment
Four General Trends in Performance Curves
1. linear: proportional increases over trials or time 2. negatively accelerated: early improvement but slows during latter practice 3. positively accelerated: slight improvement early but substantial improvement during later practice 4. Ogive or S-shaped: combination of curves 1-3
Speed-Accuracy Skills Speed accuracy tasks utilize both of the two motor control processes at different levels:
1. predominately open-loop control occurs when: initial movement instructions are sufficient enough to move limb to the vicinity of target 2. task becomes closed-loop control towards the end when: feedback from vision and proprioception needed at end of movement to ensure hitting target accurately
Effects of Practice
1. relatively permanent effects that persist across many days, even years (ex: learning) 2. temporary effects that vanish with time or a change in conditions (positive or negative) 3. simultaneous temporary and relatively permanent effects
Further Exceptions to Schmidt's Law: Visual Illusions
Ebbinghaus-Titchener Illusion (circle in middle appears larger when surrounded by smaller circles, than when surrounded by larger circles, both are same size as lone circle) Mueller-Lyer Illusion (line connecting two inward pointing arrows appears longer than lines connecting two outward pointing arrows, same length as line in middle with no arrows)
Three-Stage Model of Skill Acquisition
Fitts and Posner proposed motor skill acquisition (learning) involves three stages: 1. Cognitive stage (novice) -rapid increase in performance as time progresses 2. Associative (fixation) stage -steady improvement, some consistency in performance 3. Autonomous stage (expert) -slow improvements in performance
Stages of Learning
Fitts' stages -designed to consider perceptual-motor learning -heavy emphasis on how the cognitive processes invested in motor performance change as a function of practice Bernstein's stages -from a combined motor control and biomechanical perspective
Categories of Motor Abilities
Fleishman -identified several abilities by doing a series of studies with different subjects over several years -discover what underlying abilities might be
Fitts' Law continued
MT = a + b [Log2 (2A/W)] where a and b are constants (the y-intercept and slope, respectively) the term Log2 (2A/W) is referred to as the index of difficulty (ID) MT is linearly relate to the ID
Handwriting and Vision
Smyth and Silvers experiment results vision provides information info for the motor control of handwriting 1. overall arrangements of words/characters on a horizontal line 2. production of accurate patterns to facilitate legibility
Learning
a change in behavior due to experience -something is lost or gained -ex: stop smoking, learn to play tennis behavior: -anything an organism does that can be measured -not all changes in behavior are due to experience, and not all experiences are learning experiences -ex: child start to crawl -> rather maturation than learning; calming someone by giving a tranquilizer
Motor Learning
a change in the capability of a person to perform a skill that must be inferred from a relatively permanent improvement in performance as a result of practice or experience a set of processes associated with practice or experience leading to relatively permanent gains in the capability for skilled performance
Alternative Reciprocal Movement Tasks
a) disc transfer task (two poles and places washers through the poles) b) pin-transfer task (multiple holes and use golf tees to place in holes)
Ability vs Skill
ability: -characteristic that underlies particular skills -largely inherited genetically -not modifiable by practice -relatively stable -traits -abilities underlie a person's skill skill: -can be modified by practice -are countless in number -represent the person's potential to perform particular activities -develop skills, practice needed to understand a skill -skill depends on different subsets of abilities
Visual Illusions: Potential Application for Sports Performance
aiming at targets such as: -throwing darts at bulls-eye -putting a golf ball towards hole -kicking soccer ball towards goal can be influenced greatly by the immediate visual environment are these speed-accuracy trade-offs exceptions? it depends: -yes, because the actual target dimensions do not predict observed outcomes -no because errors are influenced in a manner consistent with perceptions of targets
Speed-Accuracy Trade-Off Schmidt's Law
aiming errors about the same for various combinations of movement amplitude and MT that have a constant ratio; that is, a constant average variability of movement end points in a rapid aiming task as a function of average movement velocity (A/MT)
Assessing Learning: Transfer Tests
assess the adaptability of what was learned during practice can involve: performing the practiced skill in a performance context or situation different from practice 1. availability of extra information (ex: augment feedback), FB during acquisition, no FB in transfer task 2. physical environment, increasing the 6ft putt to a 10ft putt 3. personal characteristics, change of stress levels can involve: performing a skill that is different from the skill practiced (ex: overhand throw vs underhand throw)
Fundamental Abilities
can be shared between different motor tasks -tapping different rates (400 and 800 ms): ability, timing although the speed is different the ability is the same -tapping and drawing lines at the same rate: correlate tapping and drawing a line (very low correlation ~0.2, there is an underlying ability to tap your finger and to draw a line) -different drawing patterns at the same rate: drew lines in 4 different directions and circle, large correlation for drawing lines and timing, circle drawing - low correlation, *timing is not a single ability, there is underlying abilities that contribute to timing
Results from Fleishman and Hempel
changes in variance accounted for by reference tests on a discrimination RT task as a function of practice practice produced changes in the relative contributions of the various abilities, but no changes in the abilities themselves
Ogive or S-Shaped Curve
combination of curves 1-3 ex: adaptations to a prosthesis (one possible reason = change of environments)
Fitts' Stage 1: Cognitive Stage
concerns: -goal identification -performance evaluation -what to do, when to do it verbal and cognitive abilities dominate -verbalize information is useful gains in proficiency are very rapid and large -indicating that more effective strategies are being discovered
Performance Curves
curve1: group of subjects practicing a rotary pursuit tracking task score: amount of time in contact with the object to be tracked during 10s trial curve 2: group of subjects practicing an arm patterning task score: RMSE (indicates how close movements were to goal pattern)
Individual Motor Abilities: Achievement Potential
depends on the motor abilities of the individual as related to the demands of the task implicates that: -specific motor abilities underlie specific motor skills -two individuals with the same training experiences will only differ in performance due to their motor abilities valuable for predicting future performance success? debated in research -too many, but individual differences are important to know to predict/observe the future success of a person
Fitts' Law in Everyday Actions
different sizes of key's on keyboard organization of keys
Striking a moving object continued
do skilled batters continuously track the ball to the bat? -no, track a certain distance then jump to predicted location for contact -head movement is minimal (~1 degree) do skilled batters adjust bat speed for different ball speeds? -no, swing durations typically consistent regardless of ball speed -adjust timing of swing initiation soccer header -can an expert soccer player use advance information? do they need vision of the whole trajectory of the ball?
Negatively Accelerated Curve
early improvement but slows during practice power law of practice ex: a simple task (tapping between two targets)
Retention/Transfer Designs
essential features: -allow sufficient time for supposed temporary effects of practice to dissipate -evaluate learners again in a retention/transfer test, with all groups performing under identical conditions -any differences observed in retention/transfer test due to a difference in the relatively permanent capability for performance acquired during earlier practice (ex: learning)
Distinguish Abilities: How is it done?
estimate strengths of abilities - battery of tests -ex: balance, time-up-go- test, Mini BESTest (balance evaluation systems test), FAB (fullerton advanced balance) test based on important to task - correlations
Why is it important to distinguish motor abilities?
foundation for skills -development/learning of motor skills measurement of motor abilities -if we try to measure them we need to distinguish them prediction -athletics, military evaluation (what abilities are being limited) -ex: OT -ex: School, evaluate a child with writing problems
Support for Henry's Specificity Hypothesis
generally, the relationships (measured by correlations) between various skills are low even skills that appear to be quite similar usually correlate poorly two skills with only minor differences (ex: throwing 10 m for accuracy and throwing 15 m for accuracy) can correlate strongly
Generalized Transfer
goal: transfer to relatively different activities measured by transfer test that may involve a different task two types: near and far
Motor Learning continued
important statements linked to definition: -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 an acquired capability for skilled performance -learning changes are relatively permanent, not transitory
Separating Effects of Practice
important to have a way to separate the relatively permanent practice effects from the temporary effects -retention/transfer design: can analyze whether a change that improves performance in practice also improves learning
Benefits of Practice
improved capability to perform some skill on future demand improved perceptual skills improved attention through: reduced capacity demands and reduced effector competition improved motor programs improved error detection
Practical Implications
in group setting expect different abilities and know that performance will be affected use task analysis to determine necessary abilities identify strong and weak abilities to tailor instruction
Bernstein's Stage 1: Reducing Degrees of Freedom
initial problem: what to do with all the possible degrees of freedom of movement that are available for the body solution: -reduce the movement of nonessential or redundant body parts in initial stage of learning -by freezing degrees of freedom
Performance Curves for Kinematic Measures
kinematic measures are difficult to present in performance curves -assessed over time with trial -ex: acceleration, velocity, position to assess improvement and consistency -one graph presented per trial or blocks (sets) of trials
Bernstein's Stage 2: Release Degrees of Freedom
learner attempts to improve performance by releasing some of the degrees of freedom that had initially been frozen useful in tasks that require power or speed because it could allow for faster and greater accumulation of forces
Superability
link between superability/various motor abilities and selected movement skills every task is composed of a selection of abilities, and any given ability can contribute to a number of separate tasks
Experiments: General Motor Ability
method: people performed different tasks that are assumed to measure variations of a single motor ability 2 potential results: -if high performance on one task should result in high performance on all other tasks and vice versa, high correlation between tasks -if performance on the tasks are not related to each other, low correlation between tasks
Experiment: Drowatsky and Zuccato
methods: -6 balance tests (stork stand, diver's stand, stick stand, sideward stand, bass stand, balance stand) -tests included static and dynamic balance results: -all 6 balance test were uncorrelated, overall lack of correlation among skills
Practice
more practice produces more learning more than just repetition deliberate practice: -effortful -oriented towards goal-attainment -actively uses augmented feedback to improve performance
Bimanual Coordination Skills continued
motor control characteristic: the two arms prefer to perform symmetrically it demonstrates why it is difficult to: -rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time -draw a circle with one hand while drawing a straight line with the other hand research demonstrates temporal and spatial coupling of the two arms with practice, a person can learn to disassociate the two limbs to perform an asymmetric bimanual skill
Bimanual Coordination Skills
motor skills that require simultaneous use of two hands skill may require two hands to move with the same or different spatial and/or temporal characteristics two types: asymmetric and symmetric
Limitations of Performance Curves
not learning curves between-subject effects are masked within-subject variability is masked
Fitts' Tapping Task
observed by manipulating distance and size of target average movement time (MT) as a function of the index of difficulty (ID) as MT increases, ID increases
Negative Transfer
occurs when a treatment degrades performance in comparison to those that received no additional practice two reasons: 1. motor control system required to perform in non-preferred manner for the environmental context 2. cognitive confusion
Positive Transfer
occurs when a treatment facilitates performance over and above no practice two accepted reasons (both based on the relationship between the previous and new experience/context): 1. similarity of skill and context components (Thorndike's "identical elements" theory) 2. similarity of processing requirements (transfer-appropriate processing views)
Potential Reasons? Relative Age Effect
older boys and girls (ex: those with a birth date earlier in the year) tend to be bigger, faster and stronger, other things being equal coaches of these age-group teams focus more attention on the most effective players as a result these older kids improve more than teammates born later in the year
Phases in Learning
people who are skilled in an activity often have trouble teaching a beginner one of the reasons is that they do not understand how the beginner approaches the task, simply cannot remember coach/therapist must consider the point of view of the athlete/patient -instruction for learning will depend on the stage (phase) of learning a person is in people progress through phases as they learn a motor skill -people progress from being a novice to being an expert two models proposed to identify and describe the phases/stages 1. Fitts and Posner three-stage model 2. Bernstein's perspective
Abilities
performance of a particular skill is strongly affected by the ability of the performer all individuals have abilities, just the pattern of strength and weaknesses on these abilities differ -the only way you can lose an ability is by an accident, lesion or birth defect -volleyball player has ability (height) that facilitated her development as top-level player everyday motor tasks require a combination of abilities -ex: dexterity, speed, strength -ex: throwing a all for distance (hand dexterity, speed, strength, need all of these to throw the ball)
Performance vs Learning
performance: -observable behavior, temporary -execution of a skill (at a specific time and in a specific location) -may not be due to practice or experience -can be influenced by performance variables learning: -not directly observable (inferred from observable behavior) -relatively permanent, due to practice or experience
The Babe
played pro basketball, baseball, tennis, and bowling won two gold medals and one silver in track and field dominated women's golf first female to ever play in Pro Golfer's Association -she was very strong, had all-around ability that was superior to others, allowed her to perform many motor skills at superior level -many separate abilities, allowed her to develop certain specific skills at which she was highly proficient
Performance curves
plots of performance against practice trials whether they increase or decrease with practice depends on the way the task is scored the law of practice says that improvements are rapid at first and much slower later in practice
General Motor Ability Hypothesis
popular in first half of 20th century held that all motor performances are based on a single ability called general motor ability person with strong general motor ability should be good at all motor tasks
How effective is skill prediction?
predicting success in some future activity is based on the notion of abilities prediction is not very effective -probably because of the incomplete understanding of the fundamental abilities that underlie performance this is particularly so in sport
Skills
proficiency at a particular task can be: -developed with practice -modified by practice any action you are doing can be called a motor skill (ex: picking up brush, ringing a doorbell) they depend on several abilities -serving, kicking, skating (stamina, strength, bi-pedal coordination, balance) without fundamental abilities for a particular task, high performance levels can never be reached
Linear Curve
proportional increases over trials or time ex: learning a tennis serve -with more practice/time your serve will get better -as time increases -> performances increases -positive linear relationship
Understanding Schmidt's Law
relationship between variability in force produced as a function of the percentage of maximum force used (graph: increases to 75% then decreases) a hammer, swung at a nail on a vertical board by an arm and hand, is influenced by many forces (gravity, muscle 1-3, resultant force)
Asymmetric Bimanual Coordination
skill does not share same spatial and temporal characteristics (ex: tennis serve)
Symmetric Bimanual Coordination
skills share same spatial and temporal characteristic (ex: clapping)
Movement Timing
skills with purely temporal goals follow somewhat different principles than those having purely spatial goals Decreasing the MT is: -decreasing the timing error for skills with temporal goals -making movement more accurate in time, not less
Positively Accelerated Curve
slight improvement early but substantial improvement during later practice ex: movement tasks that require strategy
Specificity of Practice
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
Motor Performance and Abilities
study of people's differences stable, enduring tendencies for individuals to be different from each other in performance trying to predict the level of performance after practice (ex: Olympic trials, batting avg.)
Linear Speed-Accuracy Trade-Off
suggests that for various combinations of movement amplitude and MT that have a constant ratio and constant average velocity -> aiming errors are about the same increases in movement distance or decreases in MT can be traded off with each other to maintain movement accuracy in rapid tasks
Example of Acquisition and Retention
task: learning a golf putt with your non-dominant hand often less trials in retention than during practice acquisition (practice), retention (learning)
Movement Time Accuracy
the effect of average MT duration on the variability of timing as MT decreases (ex: movements are made faster) variability of timing decreases (ex: becomes more stable)
Initiating Movement
the gunslinger effect: -ex: gun duel -when participants moved first, they did so more slowly than they did when they were reacting to their opponent (who had moved first); especially when kinematics such as peak velocity and the time to reach peak velocity were measured -different neural mechanisms for self-initiated and reactive movements; ex: Parkinson's patients often struggle when movement initiation is required, but less with reactive movements
Learning vs Performance During Practice
the learner who attempts to always 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 detriment to learning
Fitts' Stage 2: Fixation Stage
the learner's focus shifts to organizing more effective movement patterns in skills requiring quick movements, the learner begins to build a motor program in slower movements, the learner constructs ways to use movement-produced feedback inconsistency gradually decreases -closed skill movements begin to be more stereotypic -open skill movements become more adaptable enhanced efficiency reduces energy costs self-talk becomes less important learners begin to monitor their own feedback and detect their errors
Generality of Specific Abilities
there are specific motor skills how general or specific are abilities? -strength: variations of ability or different abilities ex: weightlifting, explosive, repetitive, static strength
Explaining Schmidt's Law
this is why increasing the speed of a rapid movement contributes to its accuracy the relative contraction forces of the various participating muscles are a major factor in determining the ultimate trajectory of the limb inconsistency in these forces increases with increased force when MT decreases, more force is required when amplitude increases, more force is required more force generates more variability, which causes the movement to deviate from the intended trajectory, resulting in errors
Correlations among skills is remarkably consistent
this overall lack of correlation among skills argues against the concept of general motor ability the data tells that there are many abilities and not simply a single general motor ability
Henry's Specificity Hypothesis
three assumptions: 1. humans possess separate abilities rather than just one 2. these abilities are independent of each other 3. any specific skill we learn or task we perform depends on a set of abilities; with each skill or task comprised of a different set
Bernstein's Perspective
three stage model: 1. freezing degrees of freedom 2. release and reorganization of degrees of freedom 3. exploiting the mechanical-inertial properties of the limbs
Speed-Accuracy Skills
trade-off when both speed and accuracy are essential to perform the skill when speed is emphasized, accuracy is reduced and vice-versa this means that people have a tendency to give up speed for an acceptable level of accuracy typical test seen in literature is a tapping test
Near Transfer
transfer of learning from one task or setting to another very similar task
Far Transfer
transfer of learning from one task to another very different task or setting in future
Practice performance may misrepresent learning:
two reasons: -practice may involve a performance variable that artificially inflates or depresses performance, can alter performance -practice may involve performance plateaus
Specialized Transfer
useful measure in cases where: -criterion for learning is performance on a specific task -measured by delayed retention tests on that task
Fitts' Stage 3: Autonomous Stage
usually associated with the attainment of expert performance decreased attention demanded by perceptual and motor processes allows for simultaneous performance of higher-order cognitive activities self-confidence increases capability to detect and correct one's own errors becomes more fine-tuned
Exceptions to the Speed-Accuracy Trade-Off
very forceful movements when movement requires very high levels of muscular contractions (greater than about 70% of the subject's capabilities): increasing speed by reducing MT can decrease spatial and timing error; because a greater muscular force requirement increases accuracy, adding inertial load to the movement can decrease error, up to a point; an inverted U relationship exists between spatial accuracy and force requirements, with least accuracy at moderate levels of force effect of force on positional variability in horizontal arm swing movements percentage values on the x-axis are the percentages of participant's maximum force produced, correspond to increasingly smaller MTs
Striking a Moving Object
vision provides information to: -initiate the striking action (spatial and temporal) -enable movement adjustments time limits for a vision-based decision about hitting a baseball -ball leaves pitchers hand, three stages before it hits bat (decision, swing preparation, and swing)
Fitts' Law
we can mathematically predict movement time for speed - accuracy skills law states that MT is constant whenever the ratio of the movement amplitude (A) to target width (W) remains constant MT increases as the ratio of A to W increases by either making A larger, making W smaller, or both
Fitts' Law and Bimanual Coordination
what happens when limbs perform: -identical tasks with low ID or high ID (MT's similar for both hands (= Fitts' Law)) -different tasks with incongruent ID's (MT's for low ID limb slowed down by high ID limb (does not equal Fitts' Law)) bimanual coordination can violate Fitts' Law
