The development of a culturally appropriate analogy for implicit motor learning in a Chinese population

Learning a motor skill by analogy can benefit performers because the movement that is developed has characteristics of implicit motor learning: namely, movement robustness under pressure and secondary task distraction and limited accrual of explicit knowledge (Liao & Masters, 2001). At an applied level the advantages are lost, however, if the heuristic that underpins the analogy conveys abstractions that are inappropriate for the indigenous culture. The aim of the current experiment was to redevelop Masters's (2000) right-angled-triangle analogy to accommodate abstractions appropriate for Chinese learners. Novice Chinese participants learned to hit table tennis forehands with topspin using either a redeveloped, culturally appropriate analogy (analogy learning) or a set of 6 instructions relevant to hitting a topspin forehand in table tennis (explicit learning). Analogy learners accrued less explicit knowledge of the movements underlying their performance than explicit learners. In addition, a secondary task load disrupted the performance of explicit learners but not analogy learners. These findings indicate that a culturally relevant analogy can bring about implicit motor learning in a Chinese population. © 2007 Human Kinetics, Inc.published_or_final_versio

EEG coherence between the verbal-analytical region (T3) and the motor-planning region (Fz) increases under stress in explicit motor learners but not implicit motor learners

This journal supplement contains abstracts of NASPSPA 2010Free Communications - Verbal and Poster: Motor Learning and Controlpublished_or_final_versionThe Annual Conference of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (NASPSPA 2010), Tucson, AZ., 10-12 June 2010. In Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2010, v. 32 suppl., p. S13

The influence of analogy learning on decision-making in table tennis: Evidence from behavioural data

Objectives: In sports it may be necessary for a performer to make a decision and execute a movement in close succession, or even concurrently. The manner in which a movement is controlled may impact on the degree to which the performer is able to combine decisions and movements effectively. Previous work has shown that if control of the movement has been acquired explicitly, with a high declarative knowledge content, dual-task conditions can be disruptive to performance of the movement. Previous work has also shown that, in contrast, if movement control is acquired by analogical instruction, with a low declarative knowledge content, motor performance is unaffected by dual-task conditions. It was, therefore, hypothesised that analogy learning will reduce the performance cost associated with processing motor responses while making high-complexity decisions. Methods: Participants learnt to hit a table tennis topspin forehand using either a single analogical instruction or a set of written instructions (explicit learning). Motor performance was assessed when decisions about the direction in which to hit the ball were either low in complexity or high in complexity. Results: Low-complexity decisions had no effect on motor performance in either condition. However, high-complexity decisions caused a relative performance deterioration in the Explicit condition, but not in the Analogy condition. Conclusions: These findings extend the implicit motor learning literature by highlighting the role of analogy learning in the complex interaction between decision-making and movement control in sport. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.postprin

Gaze-contingent training enhances perceptual skill acquisition.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether decision-making skill in perceptual-cognitive tasks could be enhanced using a training technique that impaired selective areas of the visual field. Recreational basketball players performed perceptual training over 3 days while viewing with a gaze-contingent manipulation that displayed either (a) a moving window (clear central and blurred peripheral vision), (b) a moving mask (blurred central and clear peripheral vision), or (c) full (unrestricted) vision. During the training, participants watched video clips of basketball play and at the conclusion of each clip made a decision about to which teammate the player in possession of the ball should pass. A further control group watched unrelated videos with full vision. The effects of training were assessed using separate tests of decision-making skill conducted in a pretest, posttest, and 2-week retention test. The accuracy of decision making was greater in the posttest than in the pretest for all three intervention groups when compared with the control group. Remarkably, training with blurred peripheral vision resulted in a further improvement in performance from posttest to retention test that was not apparent for the other groups. The type of training had no measurable impact on the visual search strategies of the participants, and so the training improvements appear to be grounded in changes in information pickup. The findings show that learning with impaired peripheral vision offers a promising form of training to support improvements in perceptual skill

Implicit motor learning and complex decision making in time-constrained environments

The cost-effectiveness of the implicit (procedural) knowledge that supports motor expertise enables surprisingly efficient performance when a decision and an action must occur in close temporal proximity. The authors argue that if novices learn the motor component of performance implicitly rather than explicitly, then they will also be efficient when they make a decision and execute an action in close temporal proximity. Participants (N = 35) learned a table tennis shot implicitly or explicitly. The authors assessed participants' motor performance and movement kinematics under conditions that required a concurrent low-complexity decision or a concurrent high-complexity decision about where to direct each shot. Performance was disrupted only for participants who learned explicitly when they made high-complexity decisions but not when they made low-complexity decisions. The authors conclude that implicit motor learning encourages cognitively efficient motor control more than does explicit motor learning, which allows performance to remain stable when time constraints call for a complex decision in tandem with a motor action. Copyright © 2008 Heldref Publications.published_or_final_versio

The Relationship Between Mindfulness and Life Stress in Student-Athletes : The Mediating Role of Coping Effectiveness and Decision Rumination

The role of dispositional mindfulness on stress in student-athletes and factors that mediate this relationship has yet to be examined. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the facets of mindfulness and life stress in student-athletes and whether these relationships are mediated through coping effectiveness and decision rumination. Participants were 202 student-athletes who completed validated measures of dispositional mindfulness, student-athlete life stress, decision rumination and coping effectiveness in sport. Results indicated that the acting with awareness and non-judging facets of mindfulness were negative predictors of life stress, whereas the observe facet was a positive predictor of life stress. Mediation analyses revealed that these relationships were mediated through coping effectiveness and decision rumination. Findings provide new insight into the role dispositional mindfulness plays on student-athlete perceptions of life stress and implications for practitioners are discussed

Benefits of an external focus of attention: Common coding or conscious processing?

We conducted two experiments to assess the effect attentional focus has on learning a complex motor skill and subsequent performance under secondary task loading. Participants in Experiment 1 learnt a golf putting task (300 practice trials) with a single instruction to either focus on their hands (internal focus) or the movement of the putter (external focus). No group differences were evident during learning or retention. Differences between the groups were only apparent under secondary task load; the external group's performance remained robust, while the internal group suffered a drop in performance. Verbal protocols demonstrated that the internal group accumulated significantly more internal knowledge and more task-relevant knowledge in general than the external group. Experiment 2 was designed to establish whether greater internal focus knowledge or greater explicit rule build up in general was responsible for performance breakdown. Two groups were presented with a set of six internal or external rules. Again, no performance differences were found during learning or retention. During the secondary task, both groups experienced performance deterioration. It was concluded that accumulation of explicit rules to guide performance was responsible for the internal group's breakdown in performance under secondary task loading and may be responsible for some of the performance differences reported previously. © 2006 Taylor & Francis.postprin

The contributions of central and peripheral vision to expertise in basketball: How blur helps to provide a clearer picture

The main purpose of this study was to examine the relative roles of central and peripheral vision when performing a dynamic forced-choice task. We did so by using a gaze-contingent display with different levels of blur in an effort to (a) test the limit of visual resolution necessary for information pick-up in each of these sectors of the visual field and, as a result, to (b) develop a more natural means of gaze-contingent display using a blurred central or peripheral visual field. The expert advantage seen in usual whole field visual presentation persists despite surprisingly high levels of impairment to central or peripheral vision. Consistent with the well-established central/peripheral differences in sensitivity to spatial frequency, high levels of blur did not prevent better-than-chance performance by skilled players when peripheral information was blurred, but they did affect response accuracy when impairing central vision. Blur was found to always alter the pattern of eye movements before it decreased task performance. The evidence accumulated across the 4 experiments provides new insights into several key questions surrounding the role that different sectors of the visual field play in expertise in dynamic, time-constrained tasks

Attention and time constraints in performing and learning a table tennis forehand shot

This is a section on p. S95 of article 'Verbal and Poster: Motor Development, Motor Learning and Control, and Sport and Exercise Psychology' in Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2010, v.32, p.S36-S237published_or_final_versio

Movement pattern components and mastery of an object control skill with error-reduced learning

Objectives: This paper reports the effects of error-reduced learning on movement components and mastery of overhand throwing in children with and without intellectual disability. Methods: Secondary data analysis was performed on two samples of children (typically developing, TD; intellectual disability, ID) who practiced overhand throwing in either an error-reduced (ER) or error-strewn (ES) condition. Movement pattern components were assessed using a sub-skill of Test of Gross Motor Development-2. Results: In TD participants, ER learners displayed improved follow-through while ES learners did not. Among children with ID, ER learners displayed greater improvements of hip/shoulder rotation and follow-through, than ES learners. Discriminant function analysis confirmed that changes in these components differentiated learning groups. Greater percentage of ER, compared to ES, participants progressed to mastery. Conclusions: With suppressed errors, the follow-through component of overhand throwing is likely to emerge, particularly in children with inferior abilities, and cognitive limitations. Error-reduced learning facilitates mastery