Lecture 3.3

Question 1

What is Bernstein’s 3 stages of learning?

Answer 1

Emphasizes motor control and biomechanics

Degrees of freedom = amount of permitted movement, so less dof = less movement

Stage 1 - Reduce degrees of freedom
- Freeze other body parts, use less body parts to focus on the most important parts of the movement

Stage 2 - Release degrees of freedom
- Once some success happens, improve performance by unfreezing some parts of the body

Stage 3 - Exploit passive dynamics
- Movement becomes more efficient/effortless, found the best patters, uses muscle elasticity, momentum, and gravity more effectively.

Question 2

What are the limitations for Fitts’ model and Bernstein’s model?

Answer 2

The stages are not uni-directional, you can go back a stage if you don’t practice / lack of practice.

The “file” becomes hard to acess in brain drawer

Have to regress to earlier stages to redevelop the skill but progress is quicker than when you were first learning it

Also Bernstein’s releasing of DOF doesn’t apply to all skills: i.e. gymnasts with still rings improve their balance when they freeze portions of their body

Question 3

T or F: continuous and serial skills may never reach autonomous stage because they require more attentional demands/shifts

Answer 3

True

Question 4

T or F: All skills are forgotten equally

Answer 4

False, not all skills are forgotten equally

i.e. riding a bike vs mapping out a direction after some time

Question 5

Longer retention intervals produce more forgetting but it is skill specific

Question 6

T or F: discrete tasks are harder to forget than continuous tasks

Answer 6

False, continuous tasks are harder to forget, they are retained very well over long periods of time

i.e. running, walking, cycling

Question 7

What is the warm-up decrement used for?

Answer 7

It is used when retention periods/lack of practice results in partially “forgetting” a skill, and you ned to warmup the skill after some time.

It is psychological/neuropsychological, not physiological or anatomical.

It is used to bring the “file” back to the front, and thus don’t need to use the warm-up decrement anymore

Question 8

What are psycholgical factors of skill retention? In what setting would you see these degrade?

Answer 8

Attention to target, perceptual focus, postural adjustments.

Also called “sets”

They would degrade with time away / lack of practice / stress.

Question 9

Retention intervals can happen in the short term too. Examples?

Answer 9

Pro bball players doing free throws without the ball to warmup their psychological factors / “sets” so that when they get the ball they have higher chance of success.

Question 10

Why is the idea that the more similar 2 skills are the more transfer will happen is not the best idea?

Answer 10

How similar is similar enough?

Can have other factors that play a role in transferability, not just if the actions look similar.

Question 11

What are the factors that can make skill transfer optimal?

Answer 11

Fundamental moving patterns
- When 2 skills share the same movement structure (timing, musculature, use the same effector, same temporal and spatial structures, similar force output using the same limbs) transfer is likely to be higher

Perceptual elements
- When 2 skills have similar information processing demands

Strategic and conceptual similarities
- When 2 skills share common rules, guidelines, and parameters
- i.e. similar sports with similar rules –Boarded soccer -> futsal, solving physics problems -> math problems, driving in NA -> ENG

Question 12

T or F: With practice, when skill becomes more specific in the latter stages, it is easier to transfer that skill due to the mastery

Answer 12

False, more specific = harder to transfer

Question 13

T or F: Motor transfer is huge

Answer 13

False, motor transfer is minimal, thus specific practice with the target skill is most effective, rather than practicing a similar skill and hoping the transfer will be effective

Question 14

Practices designed to improve general abilities (i.e. quickness) are not very effective, you can’t really train abilities.

Rather train their skill development. What movement pattern advantages can you teach them that will improve their performance?

Question 15

What is part practice and what type of skills/settings is it effective for?

Answer 15

Part practice is breaking up a complex skill into parts and practicing them separately.

Effective for serial skills of long duration where there is no part-to-part interaction (an error on one part will effect another part in part-to-part interaction)

Not effective where their is part-part interaction, like in short duration skills or rapid discrete skills i.e. the backswing of a golf swing will effect its front swing

Question 16

How can we train specific parts of rapid discrete skills or short duration serial skills then?

Answer 16

By using progressive part practice, where in the same practice you practice the backswing then add it to the front swing then the whole thing. Integrate everything in the same practice.

Question 17

T or F: All skills can be classified as serial skills

Answer 17

True

Question 18

When are simulators most effective and important to use?

Answer 18

1. When skill is expensive and dangerous/high-risk
   - i.e. nascar drivers
2. When facilities are limited
   i.e. due to weather -> golf in Alberta
3. Simulators are only effective to use when real practice is NOT POSSIBLE

There was positive transfer found from similator to the real task

Question 19

How can we assess how well a simulator matches the real world? Fidelity…

Answer 19

1. Physical fidelity: how identical are the physical or surface features
2. How well do the behaviours and processes produced in the simulator replicate the target tasks – recruits the same psychological factors / sets?