Amount And Distribution Of Practice

Question 1

Overlearning

Answer 1

Continued practice beyond the amount necessary to achieve a specific performance criterion or goal

Question 2

How is overlearning implemented

Answer 2

Determining the amount of practice necessary to achieve the criterion and then practicing more

Question 3

What is overlearnings effect on performance

Answer 3

Usually positive effect on retention performance
- greater amounts may lead to greater improvements in performance

Question 4

Procedural skill

Answer 4

Include cognitive and motor components and require performance of series of relatively simple movements
- order is important
Ex) changing oil in car, assembling bike

Question 5

Implications for overlearning for procedural skills

Answer 5

Provide overtraining experience to enhance retention
Immediate OT is recommended over delayed OT because it is more cost and time effective

Question 6

Point of diminishing returns

Answer 6

Amount of practice where the benefits are not proportional to the amount of practice
- negative effect of overlearning

Question 7

What two things could account for poor learning

Answer 7

• reduced cognitive effort
• no improvement to adaptability

Question 8

How does reduced cognitive effort account for poor learning

Answer 8

• extended practice of relatively simple skills resulted in learners not continuing to engage in appropriate amounts of cognitive effort
• certain amount of attention is required to improve a skill (zoned out- less learning)

Question 9

How could no improvement to adaptability account for poor learning

Answer 9

• extended practice of same relatively simple movement results in decreased capability to remember the movements as well as transfer to a variation
• need for practice variability

Question 10

Is overlearning beneficial?

Answer 10

Most research suggest it is not essential
Other factors have stronger influence on motor learning

Question 11

2 strategies of practice distributions

Answer 11

Massed practice
Distributed practice

Question 12

Massed practice

Answer 12

Schedule with short intervals of rest between sessions or trials
- sessions: longer and fewer
- rest intervals: none- short

Question 13

Distributed practice

Answer 13

Schedule with relatively long intervals of rest between sessions or trials
- sessions: shorter and more
- rest intervals: longer than massed. Relatively short

Question 14

3 challenges with massed practice

Answer 14

1. Increased chance of fatigue
2. Reduces the amount of cognitive effort (learners can get bored or practice monotonous)
3. Consolidation of memory representation of a skill may take more time then permitted (no time to store memory, sleep important)

Question 15

What is distributed practice beneficial for

Answer 15

Results in better performance on retention tests
Beneficial for continuous skills
More, shorter sessions more beneficial for learning

Question 16

What is massed practice beneficial for

Answer 16

Discrete skills

Question 17

What if longer, less frequent practices is all you can do

Answer 17

Shorter, but more trials within session
- for discrete skills keep rest between trials short