KIN 3513 Study Guide - Final Guide: Motor Learning, Motor Skill, Efference Copy
4 Sep 2018
School
Course
Professor
Motor Test 4 Notes
Practice Variability and Specificity
• Practice
o General principle
▪ The more the practice conditions and the test conditions have in common, the better the test
performance will be
o Practice
▪ Constant Practice: a practice sequence in which people rehearse one variation of a given class
of tasks during a session
▪ Varied Practice: a practice sequence in which performers rehearse a number of variations of a
class of given tasks during a session
• Practice Variability
o Refers to the variety of movement and context characteristics the learner experiences while
practicing a skill
▪ Important for both
• Dynamical System Theory (discovering optimal solutions in all variations)
• Schema Theory (GMP)(discover what’s constant and what’s a parameter in different
variations of a skill)
▪ And Gentile’s learning stages model (need to know what are regulatory conditions and what
aren’t)
o Variability of practice experiences is important for learning motor skills
o Movement and context features (characteristics) that can be varied in practice
▪ Skill variations that will be required in “test” condition
▪ Physical context in which the skill is performed
▪ Situations in which the skill occurs
o Benefits for future performance
▪ Practice variability is better for learning and performance on future “test” situations
• Constant vs. variable practice
o One variation of a skill vs. several variations of a skill
• Research has shown that more variability is better than less variability
▪ Performance errors are beneficial for learning
• Increased amount of practice variability is associated with an increased amount of
performance error during practice
o What are the characteristics of the physical context and skill features of the performance
o Different skills require different features to be varied
▪ Practice conditions
• Open vs. closed motor skills (determine all the things that can be changed and
practice them)
o Closed skills
▪ Intertribal variability (ex: golf holes are different→ practice differently)
o Open skills
▪ Skill variability (ex: bowling pins are always the same)
o Organizing variable practice
▪ Blocked practice: repeating the same task a few times in a row and changing the variation of
the skill once the initial variation is mastered
▪ Random practice: changing the variability of the task from trial to trial
▪ Serial practice: goes through random trials and then repeats in the same order
o Contextual interference
▪ The memory and performance disruption that results from performing variations of a skill
within the context of practice
• Various amounts of contextual interference can occur during practice depending on
the schedule of the practice variability
• High amount of contextual interence
• Negative effects vs. positive effects
o Negative: makes a lot of errors when practicing
o Positive: learn better and adapt to new experiences better
▪ Interference in performance and learning that is the result of practicing one task in the
context of other tasks
o Contextual interference effect
▪ A phenomenon in which more interference during practice leads to better learning than less
interference
• Contextual interference in effect
o Low contextual interference practice schedules perform better during practice than high contextual
interference schedules
o High contextual interference practice perform better on tests than low contextual interference
schedules
o Thus there is a learning paradox
▪ The group that did well during practice does not do well on the test
▪ The group that did not perform the best during practice performed best of the test
• Practice variability
o Research evidence for contextual interference effect
▪ Laboratory experiments
• First showed this effect for motor skills
▪ Non-laboratory experiments
• This effect has been shown for:
o Beginners/novices
o Skilled performers/experts
o Amount of contextual interference
▪ Random practice
• Learners are pretty accurate in estimating their learning
▪ Blocked practice
• Learners overestimate their learning
• Possible reason
o Performance during practice misleads them to judge that they have learned
more than they actually have
• Practice and assessment
o Contextual interference is another example of why you should be very reluctant to use practice
performance as a predictor of learned behaviors
o Remember practice performance may not give a clear indication of what has been learned
o It is important to use effective assessment/test to measure learning
• Practice variability
o Research has shown much support for the contextual interference effect but also shows that it does
not apply to all motor skill learning situations
▪ Characteristics related to the limits of the effects
• Learning characteristics
• Motor skill characteristics
o Possible reasons for different finding in laboratory
▪ If a motor skill is complex it may require more practice than studied
▪ If a motor skill is complex, learning might require low to high amounts
of contextual interference
o There are two hypotheses for the occurrence of the contextual interference effect:
▪ Elaboration Hypothesis: the effect is related to the elaboration of the memory representation
of the skill variations that a learner is practicing
▪ Action Plan Reconstruction Hypothesis: high amounts of contextual interference requires the
learner to reconstruct an action plan on subsequent practice trials for each skill variation
o Two important characteristics related to the contextual interference
▪ Higher levels of contextual interference involves greater attention demands during practice
▪ Practice according to a blocked schedule tend to result in an overestimation of how well one
has learned during practice
o Practice-test context effect
▪ Test performance is directly related to the similarity between the characteristics of the
practice and test conditions
• Practice specificity
o Three characteristics of the practice and test conditions that is applicable to practice specificity
▪ Sensory/perceptual characteristics
• Availability of visual information
▪ Performance context characteristics
• Incidental and intentional remembering
▪ Cognitive processing characteristics (need to be the same between practice and test)
• Recommendations
o Offering a practice schedule that starts out with low contextual interference and gradually increases
to higher levels of contextual interference as the learner becomes skilled may be the most
appropriate
o High levels of contextual interference may not be appropriate for novices or children
o The benefits of high contextual interference are not beneficial until the learner has a basic idea of
how to achieve the action goal
o Allows development of movement pattern
o Decreases context dependency (as much as possible; done by increasing contextual interference)
The Amount and Distribution of Practice
• Structuring the learning experience
o The amount of practice and the spacing or distribution of that practice can affect both practice
performance and learning of motor skills
▪ The amount of practice is critical
▪ Time is limited (time restrictions and cost restrictions)
• Overlearning
o Continuation of practice beyond the amount needed to achieve a certain performance criterion
▪ Extra practice
• Strengthens the GMP
• Increases the stability of coordination and control characteristics
• Positive influence on retention of performance for motor learning skills
▪ Procedural skills
• A skill involving a series of discrete responses each of which must be performed at
the appropriate time in the appropriate sequence
• Includes a combination of cognitive and motor components
• Overlearning is an effective strategy to increase retention
▪ Dynamic balance skills
• Overlearning results in better retention
• A point of diminishing returns
o 50% as good as 100 or 200%
▪ Physical education class setting
