Wk 2: Motor Learning

Question 1

What is Motor Learning?

Answer 1

The process by which the capability for producing movement performance and the actual movement are reliably changed through instruction, practice, and/or experience.

Question 2

Motor Recovery

Answer 2

Recovery of function: reacquisition of movement skills lost through injury

Question 3

What is the main difference between motor performance and motor learning

Answer 3

motor learning is a relatively permanent change

motor performance is a temporary change in motor behavior seen during practice sessions

Question 4

What are the four concepts of motor learning?

Answer 4

1. process of acquiring the capability for skilled action
2. results from practice
3. can’t be measured directly but is inferred from behavior
4. produces a relatively permanent change in behavior

Question 5

Motor learning is a complex interaction of:

Answer 5

perception, cognition, and action

Question 6

T/F Motor learning only involves motor processes

Answer 6

F: must also learn new strategies for senses

Question 7

Task Solutions

Answer 7

New strategies for perceiving and acting

Question 8

Motor learning involves searching for a task solution from:

Answer 8

The interaction of the individual, task, and environment

Question 9

Recovery of function

Answer 9

Search for new solutions in relationship to specific tasks and environments given the new constraints imposed on the individual by the neural pathology.

Question 10

Motor Learning involves what changes within the nervous system infrastructure

Answer 10

1. Level of neuronal activation
2. Synaptic efficiency
3. Cortical reorganization
4. Changes in blood flow

Question 11

How do we infer that motor learning has occurred?

Answer 11

Observing performance over time in different environmental and task circumstances

Sometimes performance suffers during process, incorrect things may be learned

Question 12

To qualify as motor learning there must be evidence that:

Answer 12

practice, instruction, and/or experience has occurred and that they are not the result of maturation, fatigue, motivation, or drugs

Question 13

What are the two primary forms of motor learning?

Answer 13

Explicit and Implicit

Question 14

What are the three types of Implicit learning?

Answer 14

Non-associative
associative
procedural

Question 15

Habituation

Answer 15

decrease in responsiveness that occurs as a result of repeated exposure to a non-painful stimulus

Question 16

Procedural Learning

Answer 16

Learning tasks that can be performed automatically without attention or conscious thought

Question 17

How does procedural learning develop?

Answer 17

slowly through repetition of an act over many trials

Question 18

What are some examples of tasks that involve procedural learning?

Answer 18

riding a bike
walking
VOR

Question 19

Declarative/Explicit Learning

Answer 19

Results in knowledge that can be consciously recalled. Requires awareness, attention, and reflection

Question 20

T/F: Constant repetition can transform declarative learning into non-declarative or procedural learning

Answer 20

True

Question 21

What is an advantage of Declarative/Explicit Learning?

Answer 21

Can be practiced in ways other than the one in which it was learned

Question 22

What is Adam’s Closed-Loop Theory

Answer 22

Sensory feedback used for ongoing production of skilled movement.

Memory trace used in the selection and initiation of movement

Perceptual trace built up over a period of practice and becomes the internal reference of correctness

Question 23

What are the clinical implications for Adam’s Closed Loop Theory?

Answer 23

1. Essential to have the patient repeat the same exact movement repeatedly, to one accurate endpoint.
2. The more time spent practicing the movement as accurately as possible, the better the learning will be.

Question 24

What are some limitations to Adam’s Closed Loop Theory?

Answer 24

1. Theory can’t explain the accurate performance of novel movements or open-loop movements made in the absence of sensory feedback
2. It may be impossible for the brain to store a separate perceptual trace for every movement ever performed
3. Variability in movement practice may actually improve motor performance of the task (depending on type of task)

Question 25

What is Schmidt’s Schema Theory?

Answer 25

Generalized motor program contains the rules for creating the spatial and temporal patterns of muscle activity need to carry out a given movement

Recall schema used to select a specific response

Recognition schema used to evaluate the response

Question 26

Schmidt’s Schema Theory Clinical Implications

Answer 26

Optimal learning will occur if a task is practiced under many different conditions

Question 27

Schmidt’s Schema Limitations

Answer 27

1. Differences between children and adults with variable forms of practice
2. Lack of specificity of interaction with other systems during motor learning
3. Inability to account for the immediate acquisition of new types of coordination
4. How well it gives meaning to motor learning may depend on the type of task that is being discussed

Question 28

What is Ecological Theory?

Answer 28

Motor learning is a process that increases the coordination between perception and action consistent with the task and environmental constraints

emphasizes dynamic exploratory activity of perceptual/motor workspace to create optimal strategies for task

Question 29

Clinical Implications of Ecological Theory

Answer 29

Patient learns to distinguish relevant perceptual cues important to organizing action

Question 30

Limitations of Ecological Theory

Answer 30

1. Still very new

2. Hasn’t been applied to specific examples of motor skill acquisition in any systematic way

Question 31

What are Fitt’s 3 stages of motor learning?

Answer 31

1. Cognitive stage
2. Intermediate/Associative stage
3. Autonomous stage

Question 32

Fitt’s stages:

Cognitive stage

Answer 32

Learner attempts to understand how to perform a skill

Question 33

Fitt’s stages:

Intermediate/Associative Stage

Answer 33

Learner begins to modify and/or adapt the movement pattern as needed

Question 34

Fitt’s stages:

Autonomous stage

Answer 34

Movement execution becomes more automatic and attention can be directed elsewhere
-can now introduce distracters during therapy such as conversation

Question 35

What are the three stages in the Neo-Bernsteinian Perspective of Motor Learning?

Answer 35

Novice
Advanced
Expert

Question 36

Neo-Bernsteinian:

Novice

Answer 36

Learner simplifies movement problem by freezing out some of the available degrees of freedom

Question 37

Neo-Bernsteinian:

Advanced

Answer 37

Learner begins to reinstate and/or release additional degrees of freedom

Question 38

Neo-Bernsteinian:

Expert

Answer 38

Additional degrees of freedom released, additional passive forces exploited

Question 39

What are the 4 components of the Assessment of Motor Learning?

Answer 39

1. Acquisition Phase
2. Overlearning (post-mastery learning)
3. Level of automaticity
4. Post-acquisition

Question 40

Acquisition phase

Answer 40

Setting a criterion of mastery
Arbitration definition of performance:
Trials needed
Time needed
# of errors
# of trials without errors

Question 41

Overlearning (postmastery learning)

Answer 41

-Level expressed by # of practice trials AFTER criterion of mastery has been achieved

Question 42

Level of Automaticity

Answer 42

Dual task paradigm used to determine the degree of automaticity

Question 43

Level of Automaticity:

What is the acceptable degree?

Answer 43

when neither task causes a decrement in the other

Question 44

Post Acquisition components

Answer 44

Retention

Transfer

Question 45

Retention

Answer 45

Conditions the same as in the acquisition phase

Question 46

Transfer

Answer 46

Conditions differ from those in the acquisition phase