The effect of a virtual reality environment on gaze behaviour and motor skill learning

Objective: Virtual reality (VR) systems hold significant potential for training skilled behaviours and are currently receiving intense interest in the sporting domain. They offer both practical and pedagogical benefits, but there are concerns about the effect that perceptual deficiencies in VR systems (e.g. reduced haptic information, and stereoscopic display distortions) may have on learning and performance. ‘Specificity of learning’ theories suggest that VR could be ineffective (or even detrimental) if important differences (e.g. perceptual deficiencies) exist between practice and real task performance conditions. Nevertheless, ‘structural learning’ theories suggest VR could be a useful training tool, despite these deficiencies, because a trainee can still learn the underlying structure of the behaviour. We explored these theoretical predictions using golf putting as an exemplar skill. Method: In Experiment 1 we used a repeated measures design to assess putting accuracy (radial error) and quiet eye duration of expert golfers (n = 18) on real putts before and after 40 VR ‘warm up’ putts. In Experiment 2, novice golfers (n = 40) were assigned to either VR or real-world putting training. Putting accuracy and quiet eye durations were then assessed on a real-world retention test. Results: Both visual guidance (quiet eye) and putting accuracy were disrupted temporarily when moving from VR to real putting (Experiment 1). However, real-world and VR practice produced comparable improvements in putting accuracy in novice golfers (Experiment 2). Conclusion: Overall, the results suggest that: (i) underlying skill structures can be learned in VR and transferred to the real-world; (ii) perceptual deficiencies will place limits on the use of VR. These findings demonstrate the challenges and opportunities for VR as a training tool, and emphasise the need to empirically test the costs and benefits of specific systems before deploying VR training

Katechismus über die nothwendigsten Glauben- und Sittenlehren der biblisch-mosaischen Religion für die Mittelclassen der israelitischen Schulen

hrsg. von Leopold Lammfrom

Transfer of Skill from a Virtual Reality Trainer to Real Juggling

The purpose of this study was to evaluate transfer of training from a virtual reality environment that captures visual and temporal-spatial aspects of juggling, but not the motor demands of juggling. Transfer of skill to real juggling was examined by comparing juggling performance of novices that either experienced both the virtual training protocol and real juggling practice, or only practiced real juggling. After ten days of training, participants who have alternated between real and virtual training demonstrated comparable performance to those who only practiced real juggling. Moreover, they adapted better to instructed changes in temporal-spatial constraints. These results imply that juggling relevant skill subcomponents can be trained in the virtual environment, and support the notion that cognitive aspects of a skill can be separately trained to enhance the acquisition of a complex perceptual-motor task. This study was performed within the SKILLS integrated project of the EC 6th framework

Evaluation of the light weight Juggling system

This paper presents the training of juggling skills, a highly complex problem of coordination, under tight time and space constraints. This training is achieved with a simple training platform, a light weight juggling platform (LWJ), and is compared to training with real balls. The principle directing the design of the platform is to obtain a simple tool. The simplification, in comparison to real world juggling, is based on the identification of invariant properties in the spatiotemporal coordination of intermediate and expert jugglers. Two classes training solutions were added to the LWJ: An audio-tactile pacing or augmented multimodal environment, and the manipulation of cognitive components of the juggling skills. The transfer to juggling with real balls was evaluated in four different experiments