Intro to Motor Control

Question 1

What is motor behaviour?

Answer 1

is an umbrella term for the fields of motor control, motor learning, and motor development, an understanding of which optimizes skill acquisition

Question 2

What is motor control?

Answer 2

Motor control is the study of how we control movement and produce useful coordinated responses. Whereas, motor learning is the study of how our control of movement changes via practice and experience. As you may imagine there is considerable overlap between these areas, as theories of motor control need to be able to explain how control changes with learning. The reverse is also true – any motor learning theory needs to begin with a robust understanding of how we control movement.

Question 3

What is motor learning?

Answer 3

the study of the processes involved in the acquisition of a motor skill and the factors that enhance or inhibit the ability to perform a motor skill. assumed to have occurred when relatively permanent changes in the capability of skilled behavior are observed through performance changes, like learning to ride a bike

Question 4

What is motor performance?

Answer 4

executing a motor skill that results in a temporary, nonpermanent change

Question 5

What is motor development?

Answer 5

how motor behavior changes across the life span. learning to walk is motor development, not motor learning, because it is a motor skill that all humans acquire; in contrast, learning to shoot a basketball requires practice and is due to motor learning. Motor development must be organized and systematic, such as an infant progressing through the motor milestones of raising the head, to rolling over, to crawling, and then to walking. The changes also need to be successive—that is, they must occur in an uninterrupted order. Changes that occur as a result of practice or experience, however, are due to motor learning, not motor development.

Question 6

What is a skill?

Answer 6

the learned ability to bring about predetermined results with maximal certainty, often with a minimum outlay of time or energy (Knapp, 1963)

Question 7

What is an open skill?’

Answer 7

one for which the environment is variable and unpredictable during the action. Examples include most team sports

Question 8

What is a closed skill?

Answer 8

one for which the environment is stable and predictable. Examples include swimming in an empty lane

Question 9

What is a serial skill?

Answer 9

often thought of as a group of discrete skills strung together to make up a new, more complicated skilled action, where the order of the elements is usually critical for successful performance. Shifting car gears is a serial skill. differ from discrete skills in that the movement durations tend to be somewhat longer, yet each component retains a discrete beginning and end

Question 10

What is a discrete skill?

Answer 10

usually has an easily defined beginning and end, often with a very brief duration of movement, such as throwing a ball

Question 11

What is a continuos skill?

Answer 11

has no particular beginning or end, the behavior flowing on for many minutes, such as swimming

Question 12

What is constant error?

Answer 12

Constant error measures the deviation from the target. It comes with a positive or negative sign which points out the direction of the error. Absolute constant error will give the absolute value of CE alone without mentioning the direction.

Question 13

What is absolute error?

Answer 13

Absolute error is the overall deviation without considering the direction (+ve or -ve)

Question 14

What is variable error?

Answer 14

Variable error measures the consistency of the shots

Question 15

What are sports skills?

Answer 15

Sport skills have been separated into three categories: cognitive, perceptual, and motor (Honeybourne, 2006). At young ages, basic skills provide the foundation for activities that require much more complicated sport-specific motor skills. These basic skills are termed fundamental motor skills and include activities such as overhand throwing, jumping, catching, kicking, and striking.

Question 16

What are movement taxonomies?

Answer 16

A movement taxonomy provides a framework for grouping motor skills into themes for teaching fundamental motor skills. In the developmental taxonomy, motor skills can be broken down into three groups: nonlocomotor stability, locomotor skills, and manipulative skills.Most advanced motor skills require the ability to control all three of the skill elements, whereas fundamental motor skills focus more on individual elements. When designing a practice sequence or teaching a new skill, a practitioner would do well to simplify the task by focusing on only one aspect of the movement at a time and to take each of the three developmental taxonomies into consideration. The sequence should begin with a stable task. As the performer increases in proficiency, more difficulty can be added,

Question 17

What is single-dimensional classification?

Answer 17

understand the basic elements and sequence of the movements.In this section, skills are classified according to movement precision (gross/ fine often teach gross first), environmental predictability (closed/ open, Most often, amateurs do not have experience in stressful, competitive environments, whereas professionals are very familiar with varied conditions and pressure situations.), time constraint taxonomy (Tasks with time constraints are less complex than tasks without them), and the nature of the skill (discrete, serial, continuous).

Question 18

What is multi-dimensional classification?

Answer 18

best to place learners in a closed environment in which much of the task can be simplified and controlled before progressing to a more challenging and adaptable open environment

Question 19

What is Gentiles Classification System?

Answer 19

Gentile (2000) designed a classification system for gradual progressions from closed to open environments. Gentile’s taxonomy, which is useful for individualizing motor skill progressions, uses two main categories to assist in program development: the environmental context a(regulatory & intertrial) and the action requirements..Gentile (2000) classified regulatory conditions as either moving or stationary. Stationary regulatory conditions, such as the pins in bowling, require considerably less skill than moving regulatory conditions, such as the clay targets in skeet shooting.two classifications to define the action requirements of a skill: body orientation and manipulation. Body orientation is classified as either body transport (during sporting activities, such as a basketball layup or a triple jump) or body stability (as in archery). When someone must manipulate an object (e.g., racket, bat, or ball) or an opponent (e.g., in wrestling, boxing, or karate), the task is considered higher in complexity. The person must not only adjust or maintain body posture and position (or both) but also manipulate and control an implement (e.g., tennis ball) or a person (e.g., in judo). Gentile’s taxonomy combines the four classifications for the environmental context with the four classifications of the action requirements to create a 16-category system for classifying motor skills.

Question 20

What is the difference between skill vs ability?

Answer 20

skills are learned, whereas abilities are as genetically predetermined characteristics that affect movement performance, such as agility, coordination, strength, and flexibility. Abilities are enduring and, as such, are difficult to change in adults.