Lecture 24 - Motor Learning

Question 1

Learning Produces Relatively Permanent Changes in Performance

Answer 1

If you practise you will get better

• does not mean you will always play well

Regardless of skill level, any individual performance can vary due to factors such as mood, motivation, stress, etc

Question 2

Things that affect performance

Answer 2

1) Physical fatigue: caused by longer or intense practice

2) Arousal (Inattention/Central Fatigue): A person’s state of alertness or arousal
can increase or decrease with practice (fatigue can decrease arousal)

-emotional stressers or being in good mood

3) Motivation: The less motivated a person is to perform well, the less well they are likely to perform

Question 3

How do we track motor learning

Answer 3

Motor tracking experiment:

1. Target rotates around the circular
   path with predefined speed
2. Subject is instructed to maintain
   their mouse cursor in the target
3. Compute Time on Target or %Time
   on Target (positive) or Error between cursor and target (negative)
4. Compare Time on Target or Error
   across sequential trials.

This task has been used extensively in motor control and learning research for 60+ years

Question 4

Perfomance curves

Answer 4

A graph of performance across trials.
We often report average performance across a number of trials and people

• At first most learning, keeps increasing then diminishing returns and growth is not as linear

Question 5

Law of practise

Answer 5

The Law of Practice: Performance improves rapidly at first, but more gradually later on (i.e., diminishing returns). This means that performance curves are relatively well described
by power- or exponential processes

Question 6

Change in perfomance

Answer 6

difference in initial to final performance in one day

Question 7

Observations

Answer 7

1. Initial errors are smaller when participants perform the same task on Day 2
2. The rate of re-learning the task is faster when participants perform the task on Day 2 (it takes them fewer trials to hit the same level of performance)

Next day takes a bit to warm up and get back to optimal performance. Lost some learning but will get back

Question 8

Group averages tell us nothing about learners

Answer 8

When we look at mean not everyone is performing that way

Performance curves can (and often do) mask individual differences in motor performance and learning

Question 9

Averaging Smooths out Differences Between Trials and Individual People

Answer 9

The more the data is averaged, the less
informative it is about individual data points

Average performance curves mask trial-to-trial variability and variation in
the learning patterns of individual people

Question 10

The Importance of Practice in Motor
Skill Learning

Answer 10

Improvements in performance should be relatively permanent to be considered motor learning

• With practise, over time can continue to perform and high level

Question 11

Learning or Performance?

Answer 11

Golf putting example

Performance was better in the group
that practiced with an alignment aid.

… but did Group 1 learn better than
Group 2? No!

We have to make sure we measure learning (i.e., relatively permanent) and not (temporary changes) in performance that are specific to the
practice conditions

Question 12

Motor learning

Answer 12

The process of improving
performance in a motor skill
is called motor learning

ex: learning to throw

Motor learning (skill acquisition) refers to the process of acquiring a motor skill

Question 13

Motor Adaptation – Modifying Motor Skills

Answer 13

Once a skill is learned, motor adaptation is the process of modifying the skill for different conditions, equipment, etc

Golfing in sun vs rain or wind

Motor learning (skill acquisition)
refers to the process of acquiring a
motor skill. Motor adaptation
involves modifying an existing motor
skill. This is still debated in the field…