Chapter 5 Flashcards
Helps us understand phenomena and explains the reasons why these phenomena exist or behave as they do. They are developed to help us understand various aspects of the physical universe and do so by providing us with explanations of observable physical events.
Theory
- Must accurately describe a large class of observations 2. Must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.
Requirements of a Theory
Theory of Motor Control
Understanding and explain motor skill performance (constraints, limits, potential, deficits, etc.) enables the practitioner to: 1. Identify performance problems; 2. Develop intervention strategies to help overcome performance problems; 3. Predict effectiveness of intervention strategies; 4. Develop a systematic approach to help a person increase skill performance capabilities; 5. Create new intervention strategies; and 6. Evaluate effectiveness of intervention strategies (See p. 88 for graphic)
Proposing laws and principles that govern coordinated human motor behavior. Focuses on explaining observed behavior w/o specifying neural-level features.
Behavioral-level motor control theories
Describes neural mechanism interactions that explain how the nervous system is involved in behavioral principles.
Neural-level motor control theories
The patterning of head, body, and/or limb motions relative to the patterning of environmental objects and events
*Coordination
The number of independent elements or components in a control system and the number of ways each component can vary
*Degrees of Freedom
A control problem that occurs in the designing of a complex system that must produce a specific result; the design problem involves determining how to constrain the system’s many degrees of freedom so that it can produce the specific result
*Degrees of Freedom Problem
A control system in which all the information needed to initiate and carry out an action as planned is contained in the initial instructions to the effectors
*Open-loop Control System
A control system in which, during the course of an action, feedback is compared against a standard or reference to enable an action to be carried out as planned
*Closed-loop Control system
The control center of a control system whose role is to generate and issue movement instructions.
Executive
The muscles of the limbs, body, and/or head involved in producing a desired movement
Effectors
Information from the sensory system that indicates the status of a movement to the central nervous system; in a closed-loop control system, feedback is used to make corrections to an ongoing movement.
*Feedback
A memory representation that stores information needed to perform an action
*Motor Program
The memory representation of a class of actions that share common invariant characteristics; it provides the basis for controlling a specific action within the class of actions
*Schmidt’s Generalized Motor Program (GMP)
A set of different actions having a common but unique set of features
Class of Actions
A unique set of characteristics that defines a GMP and does not vary from one performance of the action to another. The “signature” of a GMP that forms the basis for what is stored in memory
*Invariant Features
Features of the GMP that can be varied from one performance of a skill to another; the features of a skill that must be added to the invariant features of a GMP before a person can perform a skill to meet the specific demands of a situation.
*Parameters
The proportion, or percentage, of the total amount of time required by each component of a skill during the performance of that skill
*Relative Time
A formalized theory of how the GMP operates to control coordinated movement
Schmidt’s Schema Theory
A rule or set of rules that serves to provide the basis for a decision; in Schmidt’s schema theory, an abstract representation of rules governing movement
*Schema
Responsible for providing the specific rules governing the performance of a skill in a given situation
Motor Response Schema
An approach to describing and explaining the control of coordinated movement that emphasizes the role of information in the environment and the dynamic properties of the body and limbs; it is also known as the dynamic pattern theory
*Dynamical Systems Theory
A behavior that changes in abrupt, nonlinear ways in response to systematic linear increases in the value of a specific variable
Nonlinear Behavior