Motor Learning & Performance Exam 1

Discrete Task

has a defined beginning & end

ex. throwing a ball, performing a squat, & shifting gears

Continuous Task

does not have a defined beginning and end

ex. running, mixing cake batter

Serial Task

a series of discrete tasks strung together

ex. gymnastic routine, throwing a javelin, & driving a manual car

Open Skill

one for which the environment is variable & unpredictable during the attention

• Can’t control the actions of other people

• Ex. team sports such as soccer, a police traffic stop

Closed Skill

a skill that occurs in a closed environment, so the skill is performed in a predictable environment where the performer controls the timing & technique is the same

ex. swimming in a empty lane in a pool, shooting a basketball in an empty gym

Task Perspective

Task organization (discrete, serial, continuous)

Cognitive Elements (motor or cognitive)

Environmental Predictability (closed or open)

Motor Skill

emphasizes the quality of movement that makes the skill successful

• Correct performance

• Decision making is minimized & motor performance is maximized

Cognitive Skill

the movement is less important than the actual decision guiding the movement

• Emphasis placed on what to d

• Decision making is maximized & motor control is minimized

• ex. chess

Performance Proficiency Perspective

Maximum Certainty - able to meet performance goals or results with certainty, high degree of certainty on demand

Minimum Movement Time - able to perform skill in the shortest amount of time possible

Minimum Energy Expenditure - reduction of unwanted or unnecessary energy

Motor performance

observable & influenced by motivation, attentional focus, fatigue, & physical conditions

fluctuates

Motor Learning

an internal process that determines capability, improves with practice, often based on observing a person’s stability of motor performance, & is stable over several observations under varied circumstances

Motor Skill vs. General Movement

Motor skill = goal directed activity that can be assessed by quality of movement & requires voluntary control to achieve a specific objective

General movement = motion of the body regardless of it having a goal or level of mastery

Cognitive Learner

(beginner) learner builds a conscious understanding of a new skill & figures out what the task requires

Associative Learner

(intermediate) learner refines a skill, reduces error, & goes from relying on external cues to relying on internal feedback

Autonomous Learner

(advanced) skill learning becomes automatic, smooth, & unconscious

Stimulus Identification (information processing stage)

a sensory stage, that decides whether a stimulus is present, components of stimuli are assembled through this stage, & patterns of movement are detected

Response Selection (information processing stage)

provides information about the input, decides what response to make given the nature of the situation, transition between stimulus identification & movement programming

Movement Processing (information processing stage)

organizing the motor system to make the desired movement

before producing a movement, the system must ready the lower level mechanisms in the brain stem & spinal cord for action & retrieve & organize a motor program

Reaction Time

measures the speed & effectiveness of decision making, it is the period of time when the stimulus is first presented to when the movement time begins

important in sports because athletes need to be able to quickly process & respond to external stimuli

Movement Time

period of time from beginning of response until completion of the movement

Response Time

reaction time + movement time

Simple Reaction Time

when there is one stimulus and one response

it is the fastest

Choice Reaction Time

interval of time between the presentation of one of several stimuli & the beginning of several responses

Hicks Law

states that there is an increase in reaction time due to a greater number of S-R alternatives

• When number of stimuli increases so does reaction time

As number of stimulus response alternatives increases choice reaction time increases in a linear fashion

Stroop Effect

A mental experiment showing that humans are able to process two stimuli in parallel during the stimulus-identification stage and that processing more than one stimulus results in longer information-processing time

Parallel Processing

when information is automatic other tasks can be processed simultaneously

occurs in the stimulus identification stage, some sensory information can be processed in parallel without much interference - without attention

Controlled Processing

deliberate & require consciousness, slow, serial, attention demanding, voluntary, & more prominent during the early stages of learning

Controlled = Cognitive

Automatic Processing

quick, parallel, not attention demanding, involuntary, prominent during later stages of learning, takes lots of practice, most beneficial in stable & predictable environments

Automatic = Autonomous

Spatial Ancticipation

the ability to anticipate performance movement (ex. anticipating where the opponent will hit the shot in badminton)

Temporal Anticipation

ability to predict the time course of the event → when it will occur

ex. the snapping of the ball in football

Limited Attentional Capacity

a strict ceiling on the brain’s ability to process, select, & focus on incoming information at any given moment

attention is a limited mental resource that is related to information processing capabilities & limits on human skilled performance

• Limited & serial

Selective Attention

what you are paying attention to in the moment & time

focusing on specific stimulus while ignoring other competing background distractions

Inattentional Blindness

we can miss seemingly obvious features in our environment & when we are engaged in attentive visual search

• Automobile accidents seem linked to this philosophy

Sustained Attention

after a period of time the task of concentrating on a single target of our attention becomes a progressively more difficult chore

factors known to affect vigiilance include motivation, arousal, fatigue, & environmental factors

Who, what, & where

who = person/learner

what = the skill

where = type of environment