Task 7 - Skill Leanring Flashcards
Skill
Ability that can improve over time through practice
Perpetual motor skill
Learned movement patterns guided by Sensory inputs
Cognitive skill
Skill that requires problem solving or the application of strategies
Features skill memory (3)
1) difficult to convey except by direct demonstration
2) may be acquired without awareness
3) requires several repetitions
Memories for events/facts
1) can be communicated flexibly in different formats
2) content that is consciously accessible
3) can be acquired in a single exposure
Closed skills
A skill that involves performing predefined movements, that ideally never vary
Open skills
Skill in which movements are made on basis of predictions about changing demands of environment
More repetition does not guarantee improvement
-knowledge of results: feedback is critical to effectiveness of practice
Power law of practice
…
Massed practice
- concentrated, Continuous practice of a skill
- > better performance in short term
Spaced practice
Spread out over serval sessions
-> long term
Constant practice
Practice involving a constrained set of materials and skills
Variable practice
- performance of skills in a wide variety of contexts
- > often more effective, can sometimes lead to slower progress, but later performance is usually superior
Gradual training
Increasing difficulty of trials during training
-> gradual training spread out over longer periods (spaced training) can enhance skill acquisition more than gruelling,nonstop practice
Practicing 2 skills on same day
-interference with retention of memories for first skill
Are more complex skills less or more susceptible to interference effects?
Less
Brain substrates skill learning
- basal ganglia
- cerebellum
- brainstem
- spinal cord
Basal ganglia
- important for controlling velocity (schnelle), direction, and amplitude of movements and preparing to move
- > important in perceptual motor learning that involves generating motor responses based on specific environmental cues
Disruption of activity in basal ganglia
- impairs skill learning
- but not the formation/recall of memories for facts and events
Input basal ganglia
- from cortical Neurons
- sensory stimuli
Output basal ganglia
Thalamus - motor cortex
Brainstem - spinal cord
Modified Radial maze task
- rats with basal ganglia lesion or hippocampal lesion are put in a radial maze
- when arms with food are illuminated rats with BG lesion do not learn to go into those
- rats with HC lesion do learn it
Training
- practice generally improves performance
- improvements occur through feedback and follow the power law (steep initial learning, slower later learning)
Talent - twin studies
- with practice twins become more similar in their performance while fraternal twins become more dissimilar
- > genetic influence on learning
Motor programs
- action sequences that can be performed automatically
- they can be short or longer, learned or inborn
Stages - Fitts’s model of skill learning
1) cognitive stage
- active thinking required
- information input through observation
- verbalizable rules
2) associative stage
- stereotyping of actions
- less reliance on rules (instructions)
3) autonomous stage
- movements have become motor programs
- > at this stage thinking too much about what you are doing when performing a skill can impair performance
Motor skill learning - fast learning
- there is a very quick improvement after the first number of trials
- possible set up of process routine
Motor skill learning - slow learning
- set in around 8 hours after the initial trials (also when training has stopped)
- structural changes and modification of perceptual modules (like LTP)
- cortical areas can get enlarged (eg through motor dendritic connections)
Motor skill learning - slow and fast learning
- practicing a specific motor skill initiates a neural porcess that improves performance in this task long after practice has ended
- improvements follows principle of long-term consolidation and can be linked to sleep
- skill learning can change Motor cortex physically
