Pt. 4 The Stages of Learning

Practice

• In general, more practice produces more […]

• Practice is more than just […]

• Deliberate practice is

  • […]

  • oriented towards goal-attainment

  • and actively uses augmented [….] to improve performance

• learning

• repetition

• effortful

• feedback

Benefits of Practice

Specificity of Practice

• Specificity of learning suggests that what you learn depends largely on what you […]

  • Practicing in a particular […] often leads to better performance

    • Mainly in that workspace

• The […] resulting from performance during specific types of practice

  • Becomes part of the learned representation for skill

• practice

• environment or workspace

• sensory feedback

Learning Versus Performance
During Practice

• The learner who attempts to always perform as well as possible in practice

  • tends to be inhibited from […] movements from attempt to attempt

• Providing both practice sessions and test sessions during practice

  • can help overcome the detriment to […]

• modifying

• learning

Phases in Learning

• People progress through stages (phases) as they learn a motor skill

  • People progress from being a novice (beginner) to being an expert (highly skilled)

• Three models proposed to identify and describe the stages

  • 1.[…]

  • 2. […]

  • 3. […]

• Fitts and Posner’s three-stage model

• Gentile’s two-stage model

• Bernstein’s perspective

The Three Stage Model of Skill Acquisition

• Fitts and Posner (1967) proposed motor skill acquisition (learning) involves three stages:

  • 1 .[…] – someone is a novice

  • 2. […] stage

  • 3. […] stage

• Cognitive stage

• Associative

• Autonomous

The Three Stage Model of Skill Acquisition

1. Cognitive stage

• Beginner focuses on solving cognitively oriented problems related to […] and […] this skill.

• Rapid […] in performance as time progresses

• what to do

• how to do

• increase

The Three Stage Model of Skill Acquisition

2. Associative stage

• Person has learned to associate [….] with required movements to achieve the goal of the skill.

• Steady improvement – some […]

• environmental context

• inconsistency

The Three Stage Model of Skill Acquisition

3. Autonomous stage

• Final stage where performance of the skill is […] or […].

• […] improvements

• "automatic" or habitual.

• Slow

Fitts and Posner’s Stage 1: Cognitive Stage

• Concerns

  • […]

  • performance evaluation

  • what to do, and when to do it

• Verbal and cognitive abilities dominate

  • Verbalizable information is […]

• Gains in proficiency are verry […]

  • Indicating that more effective strategies are being discovered.

• goal identification

• useful

• rapid and large

Fitts and Posner’s Stage 2: Associative Stage

◦ The learner’s focus shifts to […] more effective movement patterns

◦ In skills requiring quick movements, the learner begins to build a motor program

◦ In […] movements, the learner constructs ways to use movement-produced feedback   

◦ […] gradually decreases

• Closed-skill movements begin to be more […]

• Open-skill movements become more […]

◦ Enhanced efficiency […] energy costs

◦ Self-talk becomes less important

◦ Learners begin to monitor their own feedback and detect their errors

• organizing

• slower

• Inconsistency

• stereotypic

• adaptable

• reduces

Fitts and Posner’s Stage 3: Autonomous Stage

• Usually associated with the attainment of [….] performance

• […] attention demanded by perceptual and motor processes

• Allows for simultaneous performance of higher-order cognitive activities

• Self-confidence […]

• Capability to detect and correct one’s own errors becomes more […]

• expert

• Decreased

• increases

• fine-tuned

Gentile’s Two-Stage Model

• Initial stage of learning.

  • Learner works to achieve two goals:

    • Acquire a […] to enable some degree of success in achieving the action goal of the skill.

    • Discriminate between […] conditions in the environmental context in which the learner performs the skill.

• movement pattern

• regulatory and nonregulatory

Gentile’s Two-Stage Model

• Later stages of learning.

  • Learner works to achieve three goals:

    • […] movement pattern to the demands of any performance situation requiring that skill.

    • Increasing […] in achieving the goal of the skill.

    • Performing the skill with an […], which refers to the amount of force used to perform the skill.

• Adapting

• consistency

• economy of effort

Gentile’s Two-Stage Model

• [….] : Fixation and diversification as learning goals.

  • Learner’s movement goals depend on the type of skill being learned.

  • […] skills: Require fixation of movement coordination pattern.

    • Learner must refine this pattern so that he or she can allow consistent action goal achievement.

  • […] skills: Require diversification of the basic movement pattern.

    • Develop flexible movement pattern that can adapt to the continuously changing spatial and temporal regulatory conditions of the skill.

• Unique feature of Gentile’s “Later Stages”

• Closed

• Open

Bernstein’s Description of the Learning Process

◦ Proposed that learning a skill is similar to solving a problem.

◦ Likened the process of solving a problem to staging a play, with the following phases:

1. Determine which […] in the motor control system will take the leading role in the performance.

2. Develop a […] to approach the problem, and recruit and assign roles to the lower levels of the motor control system.

3. Identify the most appropriate […] corrections.

4. Hand over the corrections to the background levels.

5. Achieve a [...] among the background corrections.

6. […]relies on joint reaction forces to counteract external forces, replacing the need for sensory corrections during movement.

7. Stabilize the skill against external disturbances or changes.

• level

• plan or strategy

• sensory

• harmony

• Standardization

Bernstein’s Description of the Learning Process

◦ Described appropriate practice as a form of repetition without repetition.

◦ Bernstein’s ideas:

• “The point is that during a correctly organized exercise, a student is repeating many times, not the means for solving a given motor problem, but the process of its solution, the changing and improving of the means.” (Bernstein, 1996, page 284).

Performer and Performance Changes Across the Stages of Learning

• Stages-of-learning models describe […] performer and performance characteristics at each learning stage.

• Benefits of considering these characteristics.

  • Provides a closer look at the skill […] process.

  • Explains why different […] strategies need to be developed for people in different learning stages.

• distinct

• learning

• instruction

Performer and Performance Changes Across the Stages of Learning

◦ Changes in rate of improvement.

◦ As a person progresses along the skill learning continuum from the beginner stage to the highly skilled stage, the rate at which the performance improves changes.

•[…].

◦ A mathematical law describing the negatively accelerating change in rate of performance improvement during skill learning.

◦ Large amounts of improvement occur during early practice, but smaller improvement rates characterize further practice.

• Power law of practice

Performer and Performance Changes Across the Stages of Learning

• Changes in […] coordination.

• […] Stages

• […]the degrees of freedom.

• Coordination pattern exploits passive forces

• movement

• Berstein’s

• Freezing

Bernstein’s Stage 1: Reduce Degrees of Freedom

◦ Initial problem:

• what to do with all of the possible degrees of freedom of movement that are available for the body

◦ Solution:

• […] the movement of nonessential or redundant body parts in initial stage of learning

• by […] degrees of freedom

• reduce

• freezing

Bernstein’s Stage 2: Release Degrees of Freedom

◦ Learner attempts to improve performance

• by […] some of the degrees of freedom that had initially been frozen

◦ Useful in tasks that require […] because it could allow for faster and greater accumulation of forces

• releasing

• power or speed

Bernstein’s Stage 3: Exploit Passive Dynamics

◦ The performer learns to exploit the […] dynamics of the body

◦ The movement becomes […] skilled in terms of

• [….] (achieving the result with maximum assuredness) and

• […] (minimum outlay of energy)

• passive

• maximally

• effectiveness

• efficiency

Changes Across the Stages of Learning

• Characteristics that change

◦ Rate of […]

• Power law of practice

◦ […]

• Degrees of Freedom problem

• This is what Bernstein’s perspective was very focused on

• improvement

• Movement coordination

Changes Across the Stages of Learning

• Characteristics that change

• Altering an […] coordination pattern

• Muscles used to perform the skill

  • Antagonist, agonist  muscles – co-contractions – inefficient – this is what you might start with

◦ […]energy cost

• old or preferred

• Decreasing

Changes Across the Stages of Learning

• Characteristics that change

◦ Visual [….] (increase)

◦ […] attention with performing a skill (decrease)

◦ Error […] and correction capability (increase)

◦ Brain activity

• more and more automatic – brain activity changes from pre-frontal to more […]

• of course motor area always being used

• selective attention

• Conscious

• detection

• subcortical regions

Performer and Performance Changes Across the Stages of Learning

• Changes in how degrees of freedom are […].

• Changes in an […] coordination pattern.

• Changes in muscles used to perform the skill.

• Changes in energy […].

• Changes in visual […] attention.

• Changes in […] attention demands when performing a skill.

• Changes in error […] and correction […].

• Changes in brain activity: Plasticity.

• controlled

• established or preferred

• cost

• selective

• conscious

• detection

• capability

Characteristics that do not change

• Learning is specific to the sources of […] available during practice.

  • When visual feedback is used during practice in the first stage of learning, it continues to be needed throughout the later stages of learning.

• Proteau and colleagues hypothesized and provided evidence that a dependency on the sensory feedback develops because it becomes part of an […] sensory component of the memory representation of the skill.

  • Result: If a person must perform without the same sensory feedback available, retrieval of the representation from memory is less than […].

• sensory information

• integrated

• optimal

Expertise

• An “expert” is a person who is located at the extreme end of the […] learning stages continuum

  • […]

  • Exploiting Passive Dynamics

• Experts in all skill performance areas have in common some […] characteristics

• final

• Autonomous

• distinct

Expertise

• Amount of practice that resulted in expertise

  • [….] is the popular phrase but it really all depends on the complexity and difficulty of the skill

  • Experts do spend a lot of time practicing and grow with experience

• Knowledge structure

  • Able to piece together the […] given for a said performance area  

• Use of vision

• 10,000 hours

• information