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MODULE Motor Learning

Introduction

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Important Terms

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  • Implicit/Explicit Learning - This stage is considered the lightest as it’s fairly easy to be disrupted and awoken during this stage. As you close your eyes and prepare to drift off, your body will start to relax and your brain wave activity will slow. This stage normally doesn’t last very long (e.g. as little as 7 minutes) as you transition from being awake to sleep.

 

  • Whole/Part Learning - Your heart rate slows and your body temperature will drop slightly in preparation for the next stage - deep sleep. It is more difficult to be woken from this stage. Your brain waves continue to slow but there are spikes of activity known as sleep spindles and K complexes.

 

  • Blocked/Random/Serial Practice - During this deep sleep stage, your brain activity reduces, breathing slows and muscles relax. The release of the human growth hormone during this phase is believed to play an important role in the revitalisation of the body as it repairs and rebuilds. It is believed to be the most restorative sleep stage, and it's difficult for a person to be awaken during this stage.

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  • Distribution/Massed Practice

Motor learning refers to the improvement of a motor skill (that is relatively permanent) as a result of practice. If you want to develop a skill, you need to practice.

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However, not all practice is created equal!

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What are you going to practice? How are you going to practice? How long are you going to practice for? How often will you practice?

 

These are just some of the questions that you will need to answer when planning a practice session. Your answers will vary between sessions and differ from other athletes, which just illustrates how a practice session can vary in so many ways.

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Planning practise sessions that optimise learning is the ideal. Athletes spend a lot of time practising - so it is important to get it right!

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But what should a practice session look like? Which training methods will provide you with the best learning environment? The aim of this module is to look at the recommended ‘best practises’ that are based on years of scientific research into learning and skill acquisition.

Mother & Child Shooting Arrows

Introduction

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Learning a skill can include everyday tasks such as using a knife or fork, handwriting, and walking. However, the focus of this module is on motor learning that is relevant to sport, e.g. a golf swing, throwing a dart, kicking a football, etc.

Working Memory

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Guadognoli and Lee (2004) provide a fantastic framework that will help you maximise the effectiveness of your practice sessions. But before delving into that, we need to understand the role of working memory and how it relates to learning.

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Working memory can be described as a mental system that allows you to respond to what is happening ‘right now’. It holds information temporarily and we use that information while performing tasks such as reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making, movement, comprehension, evaluation, and learning. It can retrieve information from long term memory and is also involved in the manipulation of and transfer of information to long term memory.

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Learning a motor skill requires working memory. Attempting to correct an error (Maxwell, Masters, & Eves, 2003), trying to sequence the appropriate movements (Cortese & Rossi-Arnaud, 2010), or implementing the instructions of a coach (Liao & Masters, 2001) all require the attention of working memory. However, working memory has a limited capacity. I.e., there is a limit to the information that you can deal with at any one time.

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For example, imagine these two scenarios:

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  • Task 1 - Hitting a golf ball to a target 100 yards away.

  • Task 2 - Hitting a golf ball to a target 100 yards away, while at the same time answering a maths questions that is being read out to you (e.g. what is 5 x 13 – 7 + 13?). In addition, a song is being played in the background, and after hitting the ball you will be asked to recite the first two lines of the lyrics. 

 

You would find it very difficult to deal with the second task (give it a try if you do not believe me) as your working memory would be overloaded. When this happens your ability to perform and learn is reduced. Therefore, it is essential to find the optimal amount of information you can cope with when undertaking a task - to create the best learning environment. 

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Optimal Challenge Point

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Guadagnoli and Lee (2004) introduced the concept of the Challenge Point Framework. The framework centres around the premise that there is an optimal learning potential for any given task. Essentially, a task that is too easy or too difficult will not provide the ideal learning opportunity. 

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  • Easy Task - a golfer who practices putting to a hole from 1 foot away could attend to this task with minimal cognitive effort. You need to challenge your working memory for optimal learning to occur, i.e., there needs to be an element of cognitive stress and need for memory recall. A task that is this easy is not challenging enough for you to achieve this desire. The golfer would receive little feedback as success is almost always guaranteed, and thus the performer is not receiving any valuable information to enhance learning.

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  • Difficult Task - you need to cognitive stress for you to learn but a task that is too difficult (like the golf, maths, and music example above) will inhibit learning because the performer will have too much information to deal with, and the challenge for their working memory is too great and it becomes overloaded. 

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So to maximise learning its important to find the training 'sweet spot'. To find your sweet spot you need to evaluate the difficulty, your skill level, and the contextual interference of a task. These are the three key elements that you need to consider when planning your practice to optimise your learning.

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  • Task Difficulty – is defined within a constant framework, i.e. there is no consideration of the individual who is completing the task. For example, a 60-yard pitch into a green could be described as moderately difficult golf shot. While, a 60-yard pitch into a green over water to a tight pin placement is somewhat harder. So, you can imagine a distribution ranging from extremely easy to extremely difficult for all golf shots. Guadagnoli and Lee (2004) termed this the Nominal Task Difficulty. 

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  • Skill Level - the task difficulty can be viewed as a function of the skill level of the performer, which Guadagnoli and Lee’s (2004) termed as the Functional Task Difficulty. For example, the difficulty of hitting a 60-yard pitch into a green over water to a tight pin placement would be an easier task for a professional golfer compared to an amateur golfer playing off an 18 handicap. 

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  • Contextual Interferencerefers to any additional factors (internal and external) that can interfere with your learning of a given task. E.g. a variable training session makes the task harder compared to a block practise session, i.e., it increases the contextual interference. Contextual interference can be increased or decreased by certain aspects, which can make a task (practice session) harder or easier. 

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Task difficulty and contextual interference can be modified so that a task can be made easier or harder, whereas the skill level of a performer is fixed (at the time of a practise session). 

 

It is fairly straightforward in regards to how task difficulty can effect learning but the additional factors (internal and external) that we can add to practice is less understood. In the next section, we will look at the different types of practice options (e.g. blocked v variable, implicit v explicit, etc.), you will see we base the appropriateness. When basing decisions on how to practise we need to return to the Challenge Point Framework to find the appropriate answer. 

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The combination of the three elements and how they affect the working memory of a performer, will influence the appropriateness of a task and the optimal challenge point.

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Autonomous Stage

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