KNH184: Exam 1

1.1 Introduction to Motor Skill Performance and Motor Skill Classification, 1.2 The Neurophysiological Foundations of Human Movement, 2.1 Correlations, 2.2 Abilities, 2.3 Individual Abilities Variables

What does motor mean?

Motor means human movement

What are the three subdisciplines of motor behavior?

motor control, motor learning, and motor development

What are the two ways that motor skill can categorized?

skill can be seen as a task or viewed as a level of performance proficiency that might distinguish higher-skilled performers from lower skilled perfomers

What are the four different classifications of tasks?

discrete-serial-continuous, open-closed, fine-gross, cognitive-motor

What is a discrete skill?

a skill that is short in duration, and has an identifiable beginning and end

What is a serial skill?

several discrete skills put together

What is a continuous skill?

a skill that does not have an identifiable beginning and end

What is an open skill?

a skill that exists in an unpredictable environment, and a person must adapt to environment

What is a closed skill?

a skill that exists in a predictable environment

What is fine skill?

a skill that uses small muscle groups like the hands, fingers and face

What is a gross skill?

a skill that uses major muscle groups in the body

What are the three critical element in the performance of any skill?

perceiving (getting information), deciding (decision of what to do with information) and producing (execution of the movement)

What are the components of skill proficiency? What is a difference between high skilled and low skilled?

maximum certainty of goal achievement, minimum outlay of energy, and minimum time

What the types of error scores?

absolute error, constant error and variable error

How do you find absolute error?

average error (no signs)

How do you find constant error?

average error with the signs (signed error)

How do you find the variable error?

variation around the mean

Why can other part of the body heal, but the spinal cord cannot?

neurons do not regrow in the spinal cord, because they are a complex web of connections

What was the number one cause of spinal cord injury?

motor vehicle accidents

What is the difference between incomplete and complete spinal cord injury?

complete is when there is no motor or sensory function below the site of the injury, and incomplete means there is some motor or sensory movement below the site of injury

What is the difference between paraplegia and tetraplegia?

paraplegia is just the legs lose function, and this is usually a result of damage to the lumbar region of the spine whereas, tetraplegia is lose of function to the arms and legs and is usually a result of damage to the cervical region of the spine

What are the two divisions of the nervous system?

Central Nervous System (CNS) and Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

What does the Central Nervous System do?

functions the main control center for movement

What does the Peripheral Nervous System do?

functions as an executer for movement, and send back messages for sensation

What are the part of the neuron?

nucleus, cell body, dendrites, axon, myelin sheath, Schwann cells, Nodes of Ranvier and Axon terminals

What is the function of the dendrite?

receive information

What is the function of the axon?

send information away from the cell body

What is the function of the myelin sheath?

fatty layer that speeds up the transmission

What cells create myelin?

Schwann cells

What are the spaces between Schwann cells called?

Nodes of Ranvier

What is the function of axon terminals?

send messages

What are sensory (afferent) neurons?

neurons that send information from the PNS to the CNS

What are motor (efferent) neurons?

bring information from the CNS to the PNS

What are interneurons?

neurons that connect other neurons (in the CNS)

What are three parts of the brain?

cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem

What is the cerebral cortex?

outer layer of cerebrum

What is the subcortical?

anything that is below the cerebral cortex

What connects the right and left sides of the cerebrum?

corpus colosseum

What and where is the primary motor cortex?

primary motor cortex is location in the frontal lobe, and is the center for movement

What are where is the primary somatosensory (sensory) cortex?

primary sensory cortex is located in the parietal lobe, and is the main center for sensory perception

What body part is most heavily represented in the amount of tissue in both the motor and sensory cortex? Is it more represented in sensory or motor?

the hand is most heavily represented in the tissue of both the motor and sensory cortex, although even more in the motor

What is the function of the cerebellum?

important in movement coordination and learning, emotion and personality

What is ataxia?

damage to the cerebellum that leads to poor muscle control and involuntary movements

What is a hemispherec-tomy?

when a part of the brain is removed in severe epilepsy

What is a functional hemispherec-tomy?

when the hemisphere is detached from the rest of the brain and body

What are the parts of the brainstem?

midbrain, pons and medulla oblongata

What is the function of the pons?

links between the cerebrum and cerebellum; regulates sleep, respiration, swallowing and bladder control

What is the function of the medulla?

cardiac, respiratory, vomiting and vasomotor; regulates involuntary function like breathing, heart rate and blood pressure

What is the link between SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) and brainstem abnormalities?

the neurotransmitter serotonin is important regulator in the brainstem, and research found that abnormalities in it’s receptors might have caused the brainstem to not send the correct signals when the baby was in danger of not breathing correctly

Pediatricians started recommending that parents put their babies to sleep on their back instead of their stomach because?

this prevents the likelihood of choking

What are the part of the spinal cord and their amount of vertebrae (bones)?

cervical-7, thoracic-5, lumbar-12, sacral-5 (fused), coccygeal-2 (fused)

What does the spinal column contain?

the spinal cord

Where to the spinal nerves emerge from?

the spaces between the verterae

What do spinal nerves represent?

the connection between the central and peripheral nervous systems

What does gray matter contain?

cells of the neurons

What does white matter contain?

axons of neurons

Sensory neurons travel which direction on the spinal cord?

sensory neurons ascend (go up) the spinal cord

What direction do motor neurons travels the spinal cord?

motor neurons descend the spinal cord

Sensory (afferent) neurons travel send signals through what root of the spinal cord?

dorsal root (back)

Which nervous system can regenerate to a certain extent?

PNS

How are peripheral nerve allograft’s performed?

when a doctor takes peripheral neurons from a donor and transplants them into someone else, in hope that they will use the donor neurons to reconnect the neurons

Why would someone who has had nerve damage might be amputated?

because if there is pain or disease in the place where there is nerve damage, the person would not be able to feel that and get medical attention

What is function of skeletal muscle?

to apply forces to bones

What attaches muscle to bone?

tendons

How do muscles produce movement?

contacting or the shortening of muscle fibers

What do muscles to cause bones to move?

they pull on bones (they do not push)

What are the two types of muscle actions?

static muscle action and dynamic muscle action

What is static muscle action (isometric)?

tension that is generated within the muscle but the bone does not move

What is a dynamic muscle action?

the body segment moves during the generation of muscle tension

What is concentric muscle action?

when muscles shorten during movement

What is a eccentric muscle action?

when muscles lengthen during movement

What is an agonist muscle?

muscles that are responsible for causing a particular motion (prime mover)

What is an antagonist muscle?

muscle that performs the joint motion opposite of the agonist

What is reciprocal inhibition?

when motion occurs in the agonist, and the antagonist relaxes

What two factors affects active muscle tension?

motor recruitment and neural stimulation frequency

What is a motor unit?

one motor neuron and the group of fibers it innervates

What is motor unit recruitment?

the number of muscle fibers contracting

What is the size principle?

motor units are recruited in order of the smallest to largest as tension increases

What is neural stimulation frequency (rate coding)?

as the amount of or the frequency of action potentials sent to the muscle fibers, more frequent stimulation results in greater muscle force development)

What technique is called to study individual differences and abilites?

correlations

What is a correlation?

the measure of the degree of associations between two variables

What is a scatterplot?

graphical representation of a correlation

What are the two features of correlation?

direction and strength

What are two directions a correlation can be?

positive and negative

What does a positive correlation represent?

when one variable increases in value as the other also does

What does negative correlation mean?

when one variable increases in value as the other decreases

What is strength in a correlation?

the extent to which a relationship is perfectly linear

Correlation are shown as what?

correlation coefficients

The most common correlation coefficient is called what? What is it abbreviated as? What is the range of values?

the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, abbreviated as r= and values range from -1 to +1

Can causality be inferred from correlations?

no

Can correlations be used to predict performance?

yes, partially

What is an ability?

a stable, enduring, mainly genetically-defined trait that underlies skilled performance, and is generally non-modifiable

Do skills influence abilities or do abilities influence skill?

abilities influence skill

What is the theory of general motor ability?

theory that there was a single general ability that underlie individual differences in motor behavior

What research helped to disprove the general theory of motor ability?

research into balance tests found that there was a weak correlation between tests of balance, suggesting that was not one ability

What is the specificity hypothesis?

hypothesis that individual differences in motor behavior are based on many specific abilities

Theoretically what could you do to predict future performance?

identify and measure abilities that underlie a particular skill

How accurate was the military’s test battery to predict fighter pilot’s future performance?

correlation was between 0.3 and 0.4 (9-16% abilities needed to a good fighter pilot)

Why is predicting future performance difficult?

the number of abilities underlying a task are large and not well understood, it is difficult to measure abilities needed for successful performance change over time

What are three variables that can account for individual differences?

age, gender, and intelligence