Midterm Flashcards
motor behaviour - def
the overt, observable production of skilled movements (as opposed to measuring brain activity)
divided into
- motor control (performance)
- motor learning
- motor development
what are the three classes of movement?
1) reflexive
- involuntary
- given a particular stimulus, always have the same response
- no modification
2) learned
- learn to perform different actions
- ex: reach and pick up an object
3) skilled
what are the three things that skilled performers have?
1) benefited (or learned) from their experiences
2) learned what features of their environment they should attend to
3) learned what to ignore
motor skill - def
the ability to bring about some end result with maximum certainty and minimum outlay of every, or of time and energy
what are the 4 characteristics that define skills
1) environmental goal - has to require some sort of movement
2) achieve the goal with “certainty”
- can perform it reliably
3) minimize energy consumption: physical and psychological
4) minimum time
- with speed and accuracy
what are the 3 components of a skill
performer needs to know:
1) what to do
2) how to do it
- skill and strength standpoint
3) when to do it
- changing environments
- conceptual understanding
classification of motor skills: size of primary musculature
1) gross motor skill - large muscle groups
2) fine motor skills - small muscle groups
which is innervated by more motor neurons? the quads or the eye muscles?
- In quads, one motor neuron innervates 300 muscle fibers easily, because we need a lot of force
- 1 motor unit to one muscle fiber in eyes for example or hands which require more control
- Also relates to how much area of your brain is associated with it
Ex: more area in brain dedicated to hands than to quads
classifying motor skills: environment; closed skill
- you have control over the skill and when you initiate it
- environment is not changing
classifying motor skills: environment; open skill
- environment is changing, you have to time your movements with what’s going on in the environment; may have to select different responses
- ex: soccer game, driving
classifying motor skills: movement type; discrete skill
clearly defined beginning and end
-ex: typing a single letter on a keyboard
classifying motor skills: movement type; serial skill
-ex: typing - multiple letters but you can easily define each discrete motion
classifying motor skills: movement type; continuous skill
ex: riding a bike
- repeats in a more continuous fashion
- walking can be continuous or discrete depending on how it’s done
absolute error - def
consider the absolute value of the error on each trial, and take the average of those error scores for the various trials
-aka the magnitude of error
constant error
- performance bias
- ex: throwing darts and always landing on the right side of the target
- tells us about overall bias
variable error
- performance consistency
- variability in results
- ex: throwing darts and being all over the grid
how do we measure error scores for continuous actions?
- root mean square error (RMSE)
- error between desired pathway and the actual pathway
- ex: driving a car
- represents both bias and consistency
what’s the difference between a theory and a hypothesis?
theory:
- explains how things occur
- man-made
- makes predictions
hypothesis:
- if…then…
- helpful when not true
information processing approach
- started when computers were invented
- takes input, black box processes, and then a response happens, response happens
- processing happens without being aware, when we are aware, we often do the action differently
what are the three stages of reaction time?
1) stimulus identification
2) response selection
3) movement programming
reaction time - def
time it takes to begin moving after the stimulus first appears (does not include time it takes to perform the movement)
describe the stimulus identification stage of RT
-could be one sensory modality or combination
describe the response selection stage of RT
- answers the question: what should I do?
- transition point between sensory and motor processes
- moving and perceiving information to organizing movement
describe the movement programming stage
- voluntary actions require our brain at some level
- travels down synapse and begin movement
what is movement time?
movement time comes after reaction time, it is the time it takes to move
-together, both reaction time and movement time are known as response time
hick’s law
RT = a + bLog2 (N)
- choice RT increases as a constant amount of every time the number of stimulus response alternatives is doubled
- related to the amount of uncertainty
what influences reaction time?
1) population stereotypes
- even if a stop sign doesn’t have the word stop on it, you’d still stop
- defined by the population - ex: driving on the right vs driving on the left
2) spatial compatibility
3) number of choices
4) expertise/anticipation/
what are three ways in which practice can help decrease reaction time?
1) anticipation: one way performers try to overcome delays
2) preparation: organize movements in advance
3) expertise: experts have a large advantage over novices in perceptual anticipation
spatial compatibility - def
whether a response is compatible in space
what are the two types of anticipation?
1) spatial anticipation
- ex: knowing cues from a kicker in soccer to try and make a decision as a goalie before the ball is in flight
2) temporal anticipation
- knowing when something is going to occur
simple reaction time
A-type task
- requires one stage
- stimulus detection - 1 stimulus, one response
discrimination reaction time
-C-type task
-go/no-go task
-ex: only respond if the circle is green
two stages:
-stimulus detection and stimulus identification - do not need to select the response, already know what it is, it’s just whether you respond that you need to decide
choice reaction time
- requires three things
- stimulus detection
- stimulus identification
- response selection
startle effect
- happens when you have stimuli about 100 dB
- reaction time is less than 100 ms
- fastest human voluntary reaction to a stimulus without anticipating a response
memories for how you move are primarily related to the ___ and the _____
goal, sensory information
what are the three types of memory
1) short term sensory store
2) rshort term memory
3) long term memory
short term sensory store (STSS)
-very brief, lots of information
STM
7 +/- 2
- if we choose to pay attention to something, can enter STM
- temporary, requires rehearsal
- also referred to as working memory
LTM
- with practice, STM can transfer to LTM
- long lasting, lots of information
- if something makes it to LTM, never truly forget it but can forget how to retrieve it
procedural memory
- something you do
- ex: riding a bike
semantic memory
ex: cat, blue
episodic memory
-playing outside in the snow when you were a kid
When a skill is produced reliably and on demand, where luck plays a minimal role, the goal is to achieve this with:
a) Minimum energy expenditure
b) Minimum movement time
c) Max certainty
d) Max energy expenditure
c) max certainty
A “________” skill occurs in a stable and predictable environment
a. Closed
b. Discrete
c. Serial
d. Open
closed
According to hick’s law, choice RT increases a constant amount every time the number of stimulus-response alternatives is _______
a. Doubled
b. Halved
c. Squared
d. Tripled
doubled
The extent to which a stimulus and response are connected in a natural way is called ________
a. Stimulus-response compatibility
b. Population stereotype
c. Spatial compatibility (this is an example of a)
d. Stimulus-response adaptability
stimulus-response compatibility
what are three different definitions/applications of attention?
1) perceptual - external sensory stimuli (environment)
2) cognitive - internal mental operations (ex: studying)
3) motor - internal sensory (motor tasks)
attention is needed for which 4 types of tasks?
1) multitasking
2) attention to detail (forming memories)
3) respond rapidly to stimuli
4) sustain attention
- vigilance
what are the three ways in which we can interpret attention?
1) a pool
- ex: multitasking
2) allocated
- spotlight; attention to detail
3) limited
- how many tasks we can do and how long we can maintain attention
as we practice tasks, we learn how to shift our attention in an efficient manner in which 4 ways?
1) events in the environment
2) monitoring and correcting our actions
3) planning future actions
4) doing many other processes that complete for the limited resources of attentional capacity
stroop effect
phenomenon that occurs when you must say the color of a word but not the name of the word
-For example, blue might be printed in red and you must say the color rather than the word
-limitations in the stimulus identification stage
cocktail party effect
- Hearing your name in a noisy room
○ Even though you didn’t hear the rest of the information in the conversation
We filter a lot of information but we are not consciously processing it
-limitations in the stimulus identification stage
parallel processing
-some sensory info in the stimulus identification stage can be processed in parallel
1) parts of the visual display
- ex: saying colour while looking at words where you don’t read that language
2) sensory signals posture and locomotion
- a lot are processed in parallel
3) salient information - cocktail
- relevant to you
inattention blindness
- we can miss obvious features in our environment when we are engaged in attentive visual search
- could consciously miss something but that doesn’t mean we don’t unconsciously process it
- ex: magicians
sustained attention
- vigilance
- driving
- working in security situations when people are having to look for an unknown stimulus
what are four things that affect our ability to sustain attention?
1) motivation
2) arousal
- how awake and interested you are
3) fatigue
- being tired - you are as impaired as if you were drunk
4) environmental factors
- can make it harder or easier to maintain attention for a period of time
automaticity
- can do something very quickly when environmental features help
- number of distractors and similarity of distractors
- way environment is constructed will determine whether you’ll need to do a focused search or whether you’ll be able to automatically find it
-limitation of response selection phase
what are the differences between automatic processing and controlled processing?
automatic
- fast
- smaller part of our pool of attention
- can be done in parallel
- involuntary
controlled
- slow
- large portion of our pool
- serially organized
- volitional
what are the pros and cons of automaticity?
1) defending penalty shots
- only good if you’re correct
2) down hill skiing
- if something unexpected happens, can slow us down
3) gymnastics
- closed skill
- automatic processing is good here
4) stages of processing
- stimulus identification
- response selection
which stage of processing is affected by using a cell phone while driving?
- stimulus identification can happen in parallel
- response selection phase is what’s affected
- in a closed environment, can perform response selection automatically
- not the same case for driving (open environment)
double stimulation paradigm
- stimulus onset asynchrony (not together in one time)
- delay due to interference with movement programming
- the second reaction time is longer when stimulus paired with asynchrony
- SOA has to be long enough so that you don’t group responses together (when SOA is around 50 ms, especially)
where is the bottleneck in information processing?
- response selection is a mixture of parallel and serial processing
- programming - can only do one thing at a time
- have to learn where to do things together, this is where the bottleneck is
what is the probe task?
- another method for studying how attention demanding a task is
- add another task to see how automatic the primary task is
- RT quantifies the processing delay
- primary and secondary task
dual task performance is dependent on what?
whether two tasks share a common resource (output modality)
- “resource specific view of attention”
- cell phone laws based on this idea but this is false, response selection phase is the problem
what are the two types of focus of attention?
1) internal
2) external
which is best? internal or external focus of attention?
external
decision making under stress: what is the inverted U principle?
- based on emotional arousal, there’s a point where we perform optimally
- if we’re super relaxed, or very nervous, will not perform optimally
decision making under stress: what is the updated inverted U principle?
- for some tasks, might be better to have a lower level of arousal, some tasks are the opposite
- some people find they perform better under pressure, some are opposite
tunnel vision - def
i. e. perceptual narrowing
- allows the performer to devote more attention to those stimuli that are immediately most likely and relevant
- can be responsible for inattention blindness
- allows you to focus attention on a small area
what is the cause of “choking”?
- occurs when performers change their normal routine, or fail to adapt to a changing situation = failed performance
- when performing closed skills in Olympics and screwing up when they’ve been practicing for years
- when people are stressed, focus on different things (using different movement pathways, thinking too much about what body is doing)
what are our three sources of sensory information?
- vision
- auditory
- hands
exteroception
where the signal has to travel through the environment
-ex: light, sound
proprioception
information available to you that happens in your body
somatosensory proprioception
sense of your body and where it is in space
proprioception vestibular apparatus
in your ears; works relative to gravity - where your head is in space, how quickly you’re moving in space, how you’re oriented relative to gravity
what is the homonculus?
refers to the amount of cortical representation
- more sensitive it is, more cortical area is related to it (ex: hands take up large part in brain)
- sensory receptors are more dense in these regions
what are the 5 cutaneous receptors?
1) tactile - Meissner’s corpuscles
2) tactile - Merkle’s corpuscles
3) free nerve ending
4) pacinian corpuscles
5) ruffini corpusscle
what are our three different types of proprioceptors?
1) joint receptors
2) muscle spindles
3) golgi tendon organs
what do muscle spindles detect?
changes in length and velocity of contraction
-may assist in movement planning
key info about limb’s position, direction, velocity, and sense of effort
intrafusal muscle fiber - def
skeletal muscle fibers that serve as specialized sensory organs (proprioceptors) that detect the amount and rate of change in length of a muscle. They constitute the muscle spindle and are innervated by two axons, one sensory and one motor
golgi tendon organ
- sensitive to increased tension at musculo-tendinous junction (where muscle starts to become tendon)
- inhibition of the agonist
- excitation of the antagonist
joint receptor
- located in joint capsule and ligaments = joint receptors
- inert tissue
- includes ruffini endings, pacinian corpuscles, golgi like
- most information about our movements as we’re functioning at an end ROM
joint receptors detect changes in what?
1) force
2) rotation
3) joint position
-detect changes especially at extreme ROM
closed loop system
1) executive
- actual workings
2) effector
- what’s doing the thing
3) reference
- to know if you’re correct
4) error signal
- change in environment
limitations of closed loop control
slow:
1) tracking tasks
2) rapid, discrete tasks
- not enough time
-useful and allows us to adjust our movement, but there’s just not a lot of time
what type of neurons control muscle spindles?
gamma neurons
proprioceptive closed loop control
1) conscious, voluntary control
2) monosynaptic stretch reflex
3) multisynaptic reflex
mono-synaptic stretch reflex (M1)
- fastest reflex we have
- 30-50 ms
- direct connection between sensory and motor neurons without any neurons in between
how long is the M2 reflex?
50-80 ms
M1+M2 reflex
- when we need to sustain the response for a stretch
- initially get the M1 response, sustained contraction afterwards
- M2 goes back to motor program, or brain stem, not all the way to cortex
- after 80 ms, voluntary control can take effect
what is the flow of information in the visual stream?
1) cornea
2) lens
3) retina
4) optic nerve
what are the two visual streams
1) ventral
2) dorsal
what does the ventral visual stream tell us
- “what”?
- helps us know what we are looking at
- central vision (aka foveal vision)
- colour and detail (more cones, less rods)
what does the dorsal visual stream tell us?
- “where”
- where things are in space
- central and peripheral vision
- less cones, more rods - sense movement but not colour and detail
blindsight
○ Can have damage to temporal lobe - ventral stream affected - difficulty naming objects but can still move and interact with objects (visual agnosia)
-As you reach for something, make big conscious corrections because not using dorsal visual pathway, using conscious corrections that are visible to the naked eye (optic ataxia)
_____ visual stream is to night driving like ______ visual stream is to optical flow
ventral, dorsal
how do you calculate tau?
tau = retinal image size/image’s rate of change in size
-we can interpret when an object is going to hit us
_______ is the size of the image on the retina
visual angle
optic flow - def
information flows on the retina
-refers to the movement
optic array - def
- the light coming from objects around you
- can process who and where people are
how do we know that dorsal stream and postural control are linked?
- moving walls experiment; when walls move in, you fall back, when walls move out, you fall forward
- optical flow allows us to make responses quickly
which visual stream is used for movement planning?
- ventral stream and action goal
- defining objects and deciding how you’re going to interact with it
is visual feedback always useful to make movement corrections?
no, you can often use visual feedback, but at 200 ms, probability is the same (in lights on lights off experiment) of hitting the target whether lights are on or off
-can’t use visual feedback to make any corrections
what does our ventral stream information provide?
-info about object and conscious decision about what action goal is going to be
what does our dorsal stream information provide?
how movements are occurring and non-conscious processes
-dorsal stream connects to non-conscious level - faster and doesn’t require frontal lobes
contrast dorsal vs ventral visual systems
dorsal system
- vision for action
- unconscious
- tells us spatial characteristics and guides movement
ventral stream
- vision for perception
- conscious
- tells us form, colour, key features
damage to the ____ stream is referred to as optic ataxia
dorsal
damage to the _____ stream is referred to as visual agnosia
ventral
extrafusal muscle fibers are supplied by _____ motor neurons
alpha
intrafusal muscle fibers are supplied by _____ motor neurons
gamma
muscle spindles, ______; golgi tendon organ, ______; joint receptors, ________
tells us about length and velocity of muscles, info about force production, abnormal ROM
degrees of freedom problem
- elbow has two degrees of freedom
- shoulder has many more
- how does our body control all our muscles and when to move them
what is one solution to the degrees of freedom problem?
- motor program: pre-structured set of movement commands that defines and shapes the movement
- pattern or neural activity that tells the muscles how to achieve their goal
theory of a motor program: why do we need a motor program?
- some movements happen so fast that sensory feedback is too slow for us to be able to move efficiently
- need anticipation; stable environment
give an example of an open loop system
traffic lights
- some have sensors (closed loop)
- most are open loop, they run a specific program and duration, regardless of environmental feedback
- happens without feedback, loop is left often
with practice, how do our motor programs change?
1) learn to modulate reflexes
2) more stable
- movements are more reliable
3) precise
4) longer period of time
- can remember it
what does the CNS need to organize before a movement can begin?
1) figure out the degrees of freedom (i.e. which solution)
2) commands to the muscles
3) any postural adjustments
4) modulate reflex pathways
what does the CNS need to organize before a movement can begin?: commands to muscles
program consists of:
1) which muscles
2) order they need to be activated
3) forces needed
4) relative timing
5) duration of each contraction
central pattern generator - def
- collection of neurons in the spinal cord and brain stem that allows us to carry on tasks such as walking without conscious control (attention)
- helps modulate reflex pathway responses
what is the reflex reversal phenomenon
same reflex can have an opposite reaction depending on where we are in a movement
what are 5 things that provide evidence for the motor program theory
1) reaction time
2) startle stimuli
3) cases where sensory feedback is removed
4) what happens when humans attempt to stop
5) muscle response patterns when movement is blocked
evidence for the motor program theory: reaction time
more complex tasks result in a longer reaction time because you need to program what you’re doing - motor program is bigger
-even if all tasks are simple reaction time
evidence for the motor program theory: startle responses
- can ask if processing is sped up or if central executive is bypassed?
- likely that processing is sped up - motor program because you still have to program response, response is just initiated faster
evidence for the motor program theory: sensory feedback is removed
- even without sensory feedback, we are capable of learning how to move
- removing sensory feedback in spinal cord
- deafferentation experiments
- if all movement depended on sensory input, wouldn’t be able to do this
- moving quickly is similar - when there isn’t time for sensory info to be processed
-central pattern generator - motor program is learned
evidence for the motor program theory: inhibiting actions
slater hammel - “stop signal”
- we believe we move about 100-120 ms before we actually move
- feeling of when we pressed a button lets say is more related to motor program awareness than when we actually move it
evidence for the motor program theory: muscle response patterns
- EMG patterns
- when movement is blocked, we see the same pattern of activity
- if you already sent the motor program out, even if the movement is blocked and you don’t have sensory feedback of limb moving, still have agonist/antagonist response
what are 2 problems with the motor program theory?
1) how do you try something for the first time
2) how many motor programs can we have
- variations of movements we perform
- ways we can do things
- program stored in NS
what makes up a generalized motor program?
1) invariant features
- what defines the equation
2) parameters
- details specific to each situation
how does the generalized motor program work?
- when selecting response, go into LTM and select correct motor program
- once it’s selected, in response programming stage, you add parameters in (details)
- program is sent off to effectors - have a hard time inhibiting movement after this
relative timing or rhythm, relative forces, and order that muscles are activated are all examples of what? invariant features or parameters?
invariant features
movement time, movement amplitude, and specific effects are all examples of what? invariant features or parameters?
parameters
what is the stereo system analogy?
- generalized motor program
- record player - can change the speed
- record is the generalized motor program
- relative timing, order of notes, relative forces
- can turn up the volume, speed, still the same record
- can change which speakers it’s coming from
how do the dynamic systems theory and motor program theories differ from one another?
1) role and function of the CNS
- in dynamic systems theory, no such thing as a motor program, move in ways in which makes most sense according to the environment
- a lot more emphasis on the CNS in motor program theory
2) influence of the environment
- environmental features are given more weight in dynamic system approach
3) how these two systems interact
- dynamic systems are a bottom up approach and motor program is top down
who created the central processing approach to motor control?
Schmitt
- generalized motor program
- mostly described discrete skills
who created the environmental influence of motor control theories?
Kelsow
- dynamic systems theory
- continuous coordination tasks
the ______ does not exist in the dynamic system theory of motor control
central executive
-aka stim id, response selection, and response programming
dynamic systems theory
focused on self organization
- specific environmental conditions + limb dynamics
- the system will self organize into the most stable behaviour
- don’t need to select a response, add parameters, or make any conscious decisions
- i.e. coordination pattern - how your limbs are moving relative to one another
according to dynamic systems theory, stable coordination happens due to the complex dynamics between which three things?
1) environment
2) nervous system
3) tasks/limb
what are some other names for dynamic systems theory?
- dynamical systems theory
- coordination dynamics theory
- ecological theory
- action theory
what are the invariant features in the generalized motor program theory? parameters?
invariant: order muscles are activated, relative forces, relative timing
parameters: effector, amplitude of movement, speed of movement
open loop control system
- based on stimuli, select correct GMP
- programs it (adding parameters)
- send movement instructions to muscle (open loop) - really fast movements (ex: dart throw)
closed loop control system
- most of the time you can make movement corrections
- feedback goes to CNS (closes loop)
- movement instructions are sent, feedback initiates correction to motor program that was selected
- can make adjustments during movements or for next time the movement is performed
