ch 8a- motor learning Flashcards
motor learning
a change in a person’s ability to perform a skill; relatively permanent improvement in performance due to experience/practice
two categories of motor learning
- Sensorimotor adaptation
- Skill learning
Sensorimotor adaptation
sensorimotor systems respond to altered environmental (or body) conditions by reducing errors to regain previous performance level
Ex. recovery after a neurological injury
Research paradigms: prism goggles, force fields, split-belt treadmills…
Skill learning
New muscle activation patterns used to achieve better performance
Ex. learning to ride a bicycle
Research paradigms: Skilled movements, sequence learning paragdims
motor learning is possible because of
brain neuro-plasticity
brain plasticity
-the brain “rewires” and adapts based on experience
brain plasticity gives rise to
motor memory
motor memory
the ability to recall a previously learned motor (muscle) coordination
NOT called muscle memory
use dependent learning
repeating a movement can lead to learning. once error is reduced, repetition can reinforce learned behaviour
5 characteristics of successful skill learning
- Improvement: performance improves over a period of time
- Consistency: performance becomes more consistent
- Stability: internal (eg. stress) and external (eg. obstacles, weather) perturbations have less of an influence on performance
- Persistence: as learning progresses, improvements persist
- Adaptability: performance is adaptable to a variety of different performance contexts (emotional state, weather, location)
Assessing learning
Performance curves, retention tests, transfer tests
Performance curves
-Linear= proportional increase over time
-Negatively accelerated= large amount of improvement in early practice, less later
-Positively accelerated= slight performance gain early w large increase later in practice
-S-shaped= combination of all 3 (depends on individual and tasks)
Retention Tests
= assesses learned skill performance after a period of time following practice
–> measures the PERSISTENCE of improved performance
Transfer Tests
-what do they measurein terms of skill?
person must adapt the skill characteristics to a new situation
–> measures ADAPTABILITY and STABILITY of learned skill
Transfer tests:
-novel context
-novel skill variation
Novel context= changes in physical environment/change in stress level of person
Novel skill variation= try skill in a different way (e.g. new skis)
How can practice performances misrepresent learning
- early/later practice scores may not be correlated
- may overestimate/underestimate learning
- performance plateaus
-new strategy being developed
-fatigue or lack of motivation
-ceiling effect= test is too easy
-floor effect= test is too hard
coefficient that indicates complete adaptation
1
adaptation can be divided into
explicit component and implicit component
explicit component resembles a
fast process
implicit component resembles a
slow process (contributes more and more throughout adaptation)
Explicit learning
a person chooses to move in a certain way to counter the perturbation
-there is a CONSCIOUS cognitive component
Implicit learning
=updating of internal models (driven by sensory prediction error)
-WITHOUT conscious awareness
someone with a damaged cerebellum…
-would only be able to use the explicit aiming strategy
-would not get worse over repeated trials due to sensory prediction error because they do not have an implicit component
Which experiment demonstrates how attention can affect the rate of adaptation?
The split-belt treadmill:
-The conscious correction group had much more step symmetry that the distracted group
-all groups adapted but the conscious correction group adapted faster
