Principles of Speed, Accuracy, and Timing

These flashcards cover key terms and concepts related to speed, accuracy, and timing in motor learning and performance.

Speed–Accuracy Trade-Off

The tendency for individuals to adjust speed to maintain a level of accuracy in their movements.

Motor Program

A pre-structured set of movement commands that defines the essential details of skilled action, with minimal or no involvement of sensory feedback.

Open-Loop Control

A system that executes pre-programmed movements without using feedback during the execution.

Closed-Loop Control

A system that uses sensory feedback to adjust movements in real-time during execution.

Fitts’ Law

A law that states movement time (MT) is constant whenever the ratio of movement amplitude (A) to target width (W) remains constant.

Movement Amplitude (A)

The distance between targets in a movement task.

Target Width (W)

The size of the targets that measures aiming accuracy.

Generalized Motor Program (GMP)

A stored pattern that is adjusted during movement execution to meet current environmental demands.

Index of Difficulty (ID)

Calculated as Log2(2A/W), representing the challenge of a movement based on amplitude and width.

Schmidt’s Law

Describes how aiming errors remain constant across various combinations of movement amplitudes and movement times that have a constant average velocity.

Effective Target Width (We)

A measure of the spread or inconsistency of movement endpoints, which increases with amplitude and decreases with movement time.