Motor Control Flashcards
What are the 3 approaches to explain the process of movement control?
- Information processing
- Dynamical systems
- Neuropsychological
What are the 3 fundamental stages of information processing?
- Stimulus identification (identify, categorise and prioritise info)
- Response selection
- Response execution
What are the criticisms/concerns with the information processing explanation of motor control and conceptualising the brain as a digital computer?
- The digital computer performs a series of discrete operations, one at a time. Research has shown humans can perform a variety of functions simultaneously (e.g. driving a car)
- How can all the individual and unique movement representations be stored in memory?
- How do we carry out a novel task?
What are (the?) 3 key aspects of a motor skill?
- Achieves a desired goal
- With maximum certainty
- Minimising energy/time used
What are (the) 4 categories of classification of motor skill?
- Control required - gross vs fine (note, many sports skills have aspects towards both ends of the continuum)
- Task organisation - discrete (kicking), serial (gymnastic routine) and continuous (running or swimming)
- Cognitive vs motor skills
- Open vs closed
Note: 1 - 3 are a continuum rather than discrete categories
Define motor and/vs cognitive skills
Motor skill - primary determinant of success is the quality of movement (“doing it correctly”)
Cognitive skill - primary determinant of success is the quality of decision re what to do (“knowing/deciding what to do”)
Define open and/vs closed skills
Closed skill - performed in an environment which is both stable and predictable (e.g. archery/darts). The object is waiting to be acted on by the performer
Open skill - performed in an environment which is unstable and unpredictable (e.g. volley in football). The performer must act upon the object according to the action of the object.
What are the conditions in Gentile’s 2x2 system to describe motor skills?
- Object of the response (stationary vs in-motion)
- Response requirements change from one response to the next? Yes/no
What are psychomotor skills?
Skills which involve a degree of decision making as well as motor performance
What are the 3 components of a motor skill?
- Perceive
- Decide (what, where, when)
- Move
What are the three most common experimental designs (regarding groups of participants)?
- Independent measures (two or more separate groups subject to differing conditions)
- Repeated measures (one group of people subject to differing conditions)
- Matched pairs (one group of people split into two groups with individuals matched by chosen relevant criteria)
What the problems associated with repeated measures design experiments?
What is one way to address some of the problems?
- Learning effect when repeating the [skill] under different condition - a problem of order of being subject to the various conditions
SOLUTION - “Counterbalancing” - divide group into 2 who undertake the conditions in different orders
- “Expectancy effect” - participants work out what the experimenter is testing for and they try to help to support the hypothesis
- Greater time requirement
- Greater likelihood participants will not turn up for testing the [second] condition
- Impact of the time elapsed between conditions (practice effect, fatigue, boredom)
What are the problems with matched pairs experimental design?
- Time-consuming
- Difficult to be certain participants matched on all relevant characteristics
What is perception?
The means by which information is acquired from the environment
What is the name for information which is acquired from an organ that receives information from the external environment?
Exteroreceptor information
What is another name for [internal] feel senses”?
Proprioceptive
What is the classification of organs that acquire information from within our bodies?
Proprioceptors
What is kinasthesia?
Information about movement
Why is perception “indirect” from an information processing perspective?
It depends on internal operations in order for the stimulus to become a full perception
What is an example supporting the view that visual perception involves using inferential processes (hypotheses and expectations)?
Visual illusions e.g. two lines of same length with arrows pointing out vs inwards appear different in length. We infer that the lines are of different length as a result of [cognition or effortful procesing].
How does [visual] perception interact with motivation and emotional state?
If [visual] perception requires effort to infer, then the motivational and emotional state of the individual is important and will affect the quality of perception.
What has been key difference in [cohort] which has been considered by research on visual perception.
What have been the 4 key findings?
Expert vs novice
- Speed of detection of sport specific/rich information more quickly e.g. volleyball players detecting the ball in pictures of games, time-outs, warm-ups. (But with no difference in accuracy)
- Precision of reaction (e.g. prediction of which part of a goal a puck is travelling towards) increases with more pre-contact cues i.e. the closer the ‘freeze-frame’ gets towards the point in time where the puck is hit and elite performers tend to perform better.
- Novices scan an object longer than experts (with the latter having a higher search rate i.e. a higher number of short duration fixations). Research carried out in soccer, tennis, basketball, rifle shooting, karate.
- Area of focus - study on baseball batters. Experts shifted focus to pitching arm and release point (whereas non-experts focussed on head and face) and accuracy and timing of swing judgement was significantly better.
What two pieces of information are sent to the body when performing a movement, on which proprioception is dependant?
- Instructions to the muscles
- Reference to be compared with the sensory feedback from the body during and after the action
i.e. is there a large disparity and has an error occurred?
What is the difference between an expert and novice with respect to the effectiveness of proprioception and how can a coach assist with this?
Expert (e.g. gymnast) is very sensitive to proprioceptive feedback
Novice may have no relevant sensory expectation (i.e. know what to feel).
Coach can
1) offer guidance on what they may feel
2) ask the performer to review the [quality of?] proprioception following good and bad performance
What is kinasthesia?
Information about limb position and movement (orientation speed and direction)
What are the three stages of information processing (according to Schmidt)?
- Stimulus identification
- Response selection
- Response programming
What psychological construct explains how we try filter relevant from irrelevant information in stimulus identification?
Signal detection theory (SDT)
What are the two axes of the graph in signal detection theory?
x-axis - strength of perceptual information perceived (note this is what is perceived rather than strength of the signal itself)
y-axis probability that a given signal strength will be perceived
What are the 4 categories of response in signal detection theory?
- Correct positive
- Correct negative
- False positive
- Miss
In signal detection theory, what two factors determine the likelihood of falling into any particular category?
- Bias (where the individual sets the cut-off point)
- The individual’s [sensitivity] to the signal
To what extent is sensitivity (per SDT theory) considered to be a key difference between experts and novices?
It is not, experts are considered to compensate in other ways:
- different cut-off point/bias (based on knowledge of cost-benefit)
- Different search strategy (advance info):
i. Experts use different info
ii. Eye movements are different between experts and novices
iii. Through learning experts learn to pick up more relevant info
QU: But does this mean they have a different x-axis, rather than the increased information resulting in increased sensitivity?
Explain the stages of Schmidt’s Schema theory for decision making - by analogy to writing an essay
- Retrieval of relevant (bits of) information to create a plan of action from the library (long-term memory)
- Information placed on a desk (working memory)
- Information sifted to select and assemble the parts which are useful to address the title of the essay
- Read through the essay, modify it and hand it in
What factors are important for effective decision making by reference to Schmidt’s schema theory and the essay analogy?
- How well has the question been interpreted (e.g. tennis location of ball, spin, opponent etc)?
- How much pertinent information does the individual have in their library (variability of practice/number of situations we have been in)
- Is the information stored efficiently so that it can be retrieved?
- Does the individual have a clear idea of what is required to get a good mark? (Teach an understanding of the principles underlying what the individual is trying to do -Tennis players with stronger knowledge found to have better decision making, serve and ground stroke skills)
- Is the individual experienced at putting the facts together in a clear format? (Practice at generating plans for novel situations)
What is the psychological refractory period and how does it relate to Schmidt’s Schema theory?
Schmidt’s Schema Theory suggests only one decision can be made at a time
The psychological refractory period is the delay in response time to a second stimulus because a first stimulus is being processed
What is the possible consequence of the psychological refractory period
How is this avoided by experts as compared to novices?
An inappropriate response to the second stimulus
Experts:
1. May delay slightly and incorporate all relevant facts into the first decision
2. Some decisions become automatic through experience (no need to modify the plan retrieved from long term memory)
3. May have already made the decision and are just waiting for the right cue to execute (anticipation)
What is Hicks’ law
Choice reaction time increases logarithmically (base 2) with the number of possible choices
CRT = a + b.log2(N)
What are the 2 major factors affecting an individual’s choice reaction time?
Amount of practice (high level performers can approach almost automatic processing with very little slowing with increased choices)
Nature of practice (practice with the same stimulus response combination decreases CRT)
What type of movements is the closed loop system of response programming used to control?
Slow deliberate movements
e.g. maintaining posture when standing, car driving
What are the components of the closed loop control system and what are their functions?
- Executive - decision making
- Effector - carrying out the decisions
- Reference of correctness (against which feedback of the actual movement is compared to detect error)
- Error signal (feedback) - information acted on by the executive
What are the components of the open-loop control system?
- Executive
- Effector
What 3 types of mental activity can “attention” refer to?
- Selective attention
- Dividend attention
- Alertness
Define selective (or focussed) attention
The capacity to focus mental effort on some specific target (Best 1995)
Note: the above assumes attention involves the selective element of perception
Define divided attention
The ability to spread our mental resources across several concurrent actions (Eysenck and Keane 2015)
e.g. driving a car
What is alertness related to?
Arousal
Provide an example of goal directed (or top down) attention and stimulus driven attention
Goal directed attention - finding toothbrush in the morning - looking for toothbrush candidates
Stimulus driven attention - fire alarm
Give an example of change blindness
Asking someone for directions in the street, a bookcase is carried between the individuals, at the same time the person requesting directions is changed and this is not noticed by the other person
Define inattentional blindness
When an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain sight as a result of lack of attention
What is the single channel fixed capacity theory of attention?
Who originally proposed this?
Who refined this?
How/give an example
What is the current thinking?
Bottleneck/filter - parallel processing without attention before, serial processing with attention after. Single resource of attention for processing.
Broadbent (1958) - meaning only assigned to info once it reaches working memory
Treisman (1960) - some info is interpreted before reaching working memory (Cocktail party effect)
Undecided where the bottleneck occurs but
- information considered rich is retained and processed in working memory
- information which is not rich is lost/filtered out
What is the practical application of the fixed capacity theory of attention
How does this impact the expert novice difference
Give an example
If channel capacity for attention is exceeded performance will drop
For experts, skills require less attentional capacity
Basketball - dribbling perceiving team/opponents, defending the call
What is the Stroop Effect?
Name the colour of the ink. Participants could not ignore the word itself e.g. ‘RED’ written in green ink causes error/processing delay as more than one piece of info is processed in parallel
What is the name of the technique by which anticipation is studied in practice?
What are two forms of this?
What were the findings in relevant research?
Occlusion
- Stopping films of sporting action before, at the time of and immediately after e.g. penalty taken. (Experts found to better at anticipating where shots would go based on time before (but not after) shot taken)
- Occlusion of parts of the body. Experts found to make significantly more errors if sight of the bat/racquet and arm are occluded
Per Eysenck and Keane (2015) what 3 factors affect the success of dual task performance or divided attention?
- Task similarity
- Practice
- Task difficulty
What factors increase interference arising as a result of task similarity?
Interference is greater if:
- the stimulus is of the same modality (e.g. auditory or visual)
- [the tasks make use of the same stage of processing]; and
- [rely on the same memory coding (verbal or auditory)]
- responses are similar
What did Broadbent suggest could be the explanation for why practice reduces interference in multi-tasking?
- Develop new strategies to overcome interference
- Demands on attentional resources reduced
- Permit a more economical mode of operation relying on fewer resources
Who were the main proponents of the capacity models of attention. How did their models differ?
Kahneman (1973) - central undifferentiated pool of resources which can be divided between different concurrent tasks
Navon and Gopher (1979) - separate structure specific capacity pools (e.g. visual vs auditory info)
Explain the dual task paradigm
What is it used for?
Used to explore divided attention
Primary task e.g. receiving a serve in volleyball
Secondary task (‘probe’) - monitor another intermittent stimulus e.g. responding when hear auditory tone
Secondary task functions as a measure of the spare mental capacity not required by the primary task:
(Dual task RT - Single task RT)/Single task RT = attentional cost associated with dual task performance
What stage of skill mastery is achieved when these become automatic such that they do not reduce the capacity for performing other tasks?
Automatic processing
What are two types of task interference
Give examples
- Capacity (limitation in central processing capacity) e.g. driving and talking hands free on phone
- Structural (use same limb for particular tasks, look at one particular location) e.g. driving and talking on mobile phone non-hands free (capacity and structural)
What 2 theories suggest the relationship between attention and arousal?
Inverted U hypothesis (Yerkes and Dodson 1908) i.e. attention is low at low levels of arousal, increases and then decreases with increasing arousal
Easterbrook (1959):
- Low arousal - many cues attended to
- Moderate arousal - relevant cues attended to
- High arousal - restricted attention to relevant cues
The key point is 1. optimal level of arousal drives 2) optimal attention to cues drives 3) optimal performance
Implications of attention theory for coaching?
Limitation in attention resource capacity:
1. Break tasks down
2. Teaching by analogy - accesses previously stored memories to reduce processing
3. Feedback - how much/when
Arousal
1. Manipulate to minimise negative effects and gain optimum benefit
2. Recognise level of arousal in athletes
What are two types of anticipation?
- Event anticipation i.e. what is going to happen
- Temporal anticipation i.e. when stimulus will arise
What implications do the different forms of anticipation have for coaching?
Give examples
- Reduce temporal and event uncertainty
- coach to be aware of relevant cues (e.g. experiment looking at occlusion of racquet ball arm and racquet)
- take into account consequence of incorrect anticipation - Disguise event and temporal cues (e.g. spin bowlers disguise hand position)
What are the three stages of memory?
- Short term sensory register
- Short term memory
- Long term memory
Explain the function of the short term sensory register
Initial store for information received
How does the short terms sensory register differ with respect to visual vs auditory sensory information.
How is this tested for?
What explanation is given for this?
What practical application does this have for sport?
Auditory information appears to be more durable than visual information
Number of numbers which can be recalled when presented in series visually is less than when presented verbally
Echo effect (if, when recalling the numbers the individual is interrupted, the earlier numbers may be recalled but the latter ones would not)
When presenting summary information - verbalise and do not follow with additional information
How many bits of information can be stored in short term memory?
What are two techniques for increasing the number of digits recalled?
7 +/- 2
- Chunking
- Group (the digits) rhythmically
What are the recommendations to maximise information which gets into short term memory?
- Verbalise the instruction
- Avoid any interference between the summary and initiation of practice
- Confine information to a maximum of [3?] chunks
What are the 2 forms of long term memory proposed by Tulving (1976)?
- Episodic - personal and related to the past (e.g. what you did/felt two weeks ago)
- Semantic - knowledge about the world (e.g. capital of Nigeria)
What does the ability to store and retrieve information in long term memory depend on?
Quality of coding
Coding is more effective if meaningful (Ericsson & Chase 1982)
What are two categories of knowledge
- Declarative knowledge - “knowing that”
- Procedural knowledge - “knowing how”
What is the technical name for the structure into which information needs to be stored for effective long term memory storage and retrieval?
Semantic knowledge structure
Explain [a] theory for the function of working memory,
what the components or working memory are and what they do and
who proposed this theory
Comprehending, reasoning, learning
- Central executive (controls the flow of information, allocates attention and resources to the two slave subsystems below)
- Visuo-spatial sketchpad - coding visual and spatial properties e.g. flight path of a ball
- Phonological loop - holds speech based info e.g. gymnast verbalising kick, tuck, jump
Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
What important role is the visuo-spatial sketchpad suggested to play in physical movement?
How instructions for movement being based around mental representations of the body moving through such movements
Explain memory traces and retrieval cues with regard to long term memory storage and retrieval
Memory traces = individual elements of memory (the ‘books in the library’)
Retrieval cues e.g. with respect to a coach - tracksuit, whistle, shouting
Explain context dependent memory and give an example of this as well as non-context dependent memory
Where the environment forms part of the retrieval cues e.g. Mike Brown and MMU canteen
As opposed to smell of deep heat - evokes memory of rugby irrespective of context
What are 2 factors which improve successful retrieval of information?
- Providing the information with meaning
- Previously recalling the information in a number of different contexts
Explain Sternberg’s model of retrieval
What was the test and how did this support the model/conclusion?
What was the reason given for the conclusion
Individual is presented with a sequence of numbers and then asked if a specific number occurred in that sequence
Response time was the same for differing number of digits in the sequence irrespective of whether the number was present or not
Concluded the process was to go through all digits in memory and then decide whether the number was present, rather than comparing each digit with the number one by one
The decision making part of the retrieval is time consuming and therefore more efficient to do it once at the end.
In SDT what does d prime represent and how does it relate to the ‘standard graph’
Distance between peaks of the two bell curves
Sensory capacity
