Lecture 1 - Motor Control Flashcards
What is the difference between a motor skill and a movement
Movements are components of motor skills. Motor skill is an activity that requires a movement to achieve a goal. Movement is a specific limb motion.
Why do we need to differentiate movements and skills?
Learn movements before skills
Multiple movements can accomplish similar skills
Measured differently (skills–> outcome, movement–> specific characteristic)
What are the 4 Motor Control Problems?
Degrees of Freedom
Perceptual-Motor integration
Serial-order
Skill acquisition
Describe Degrees of Freedom and list solutions
How to control the muscles and joints to perform a particular action
Solutions: Efficiency, Synergy, Rely on mechanics
Move smoothly, avoid extremes
Lock joints to remove DOF
Use gravity/inertia to avoid having to activate muscles
Describe the serial order problem
Organize the sequence of components of a movement
Planning –> thinking ahead
Co-articulation –> simultaneous motion instead of needing to put it in order
Describe the perceptual-motor integration
Integrating sensory information and acting on this information
Movement usually enhances perception (counter example: saccadic suppression)
Have neurons code info in multiple coordinate systems
Neurons transfer sensory input into motor signals
Use feedback and feedforward processes
Describe the skill-acquisition problem
How do we learn?
Are we born with skills?
How do we remember skills?
What are the 3 main factors and their subfactors of movement
1) Individual Action, cognition, perception 2) Environment Regulatory, non-regulatory 3) Task Stability, Mobility, Manipulation
Describe cognition
attention, motivation, and emotional aspects of motor control
Describe perception
integration of sensory information into meaningful info
Info about state of body and environment
Sensory contribution to movement
Describe action
How a movement is controlled, understanding output from nervous system to effector systems
Describe stability
stable base of support
Describe mobility
changing or moving base of support (includes stability constraints)
Describe manipulation
Grasping, carrying, etc
Describe regulatory
Environmental features that directly affect movement
Describe non-regulatory
Environmental features that may affect performance but movement doesn’t need to conform to these features
What are the 3 classifications of motor skills and what do they describe?
1) Size of muscles needed (Gross v fine)
2) Specificity of beginning and end of movement (discrete [defined start and end point], serial [series of discrete tasks], continuous [individually defined end point])
3) Stability of the environment (open [unpredictable environment] v closed [predictable environment])
Give an example of gross and fine movements
carrying boulder v threading needle
Give an example of serial, discrete, and continuous movements
playing piano, kicking soccer ball, swimming
Describe the different types of tracking
1) pursuit –> both actions of target produced by experimenter, and subject movements displayed
2) step –> target unpredictably moves between locations, and subject must follow
3) compensatory –> experimenter variations and subjects movements produce one target value
How do we stay standing
Use COP to keep COM within BOS
COM controlled by nervous system
BOS = area of body in contact with support surface
What are the 3 components of reaching/grasping
Transport to spatial location
Orientation to align
Preshaping of digit configuration
What are the 3 pieces of information for reaching/grasping
Characteristics of target
Initial configuration of body
Location of target