Long-term motor learning: Effects of varied and specific practice

Abstract

According to the schema theory, variability during practice allows for a larger repertoire of movements to help form a generalized motor program for similar motor skills. Varied training is thought to enhance long-term retention of the motor program due to the heightened difficulty presented. In a highly cited study on this topic, Kerr and Booth (Perceptual and Motor Skills 46 (1978), 395-401) trained two groups of children for 10weeks to throw a beanbag towards either one central target (specific group) or two targets that were ±1 foot away from the central target (varied group). They found that the varied group performed significantly better than the specific group when both groups were tested at the central target. We, following the same paradigm, trained 30 adults on a similar beanbag throwing task and tested them at various target distances. Our results suggested that after 5-7weeks of training, the specific groups tended to undershoot at longer distances and overshoot at shorter distances while the varied group tended to center their throws around the target at all distances. However, the overall magnitude of error (regardless of over- or undershooting) was similar across groups. We found some support for the hypothesis that the varied group could better generalize to untrained distances, but this advantage was found mainly for the longest distance and disappeared by a posttest held two weeks after practice.

Optimizing Fluency Training for Speaking Skills Transfer: Comparing the Effects of Blocked and Interleaved Task Repetition

“…This understanding is directly relevant to L2 teachers’ and learners’ pedagogical decisions about the most beneficial task sequencing. All other aspects (e.g., the amount of practice) being equal, at least two variables play a key role in proceduralization and successful skill transfer: (a) the amount of variation in task types and (b) the sequence of tasks (Kerr & Booth, 1978; Willey & Liu, 2018). Four possible task‐repetition practice sequences are proposed below: AAAAAAAAA (no task variability, blocked) AAABBBCCC (moderate task variability, blocked) ABCABCABC (moderate task variability, interleaved) ABCDEFGHI (high task variability, interleaved) …”

Effects of task difficulty on centre of pressure excursion and its inter-trial variability in acrobatic gymnastics pyramid performance

“…Bullock et al (2009) found an increase in run-to-run time variability when the technical difficulty of the skeleton track increased. While, Willey and Liu (2018) observed in beanbag throwing, that inter-trial outcome variability was not influenced by the distance to the target. Taken together, these results do not support a clear relationship between the inter-trial variability and task difficulty, so further studies are necessary to explore this relationship in different motor skills.…”

“…In this sense, the relationship between the inter-trial variability and difficulty of the task did not seem clear. There are conflicting results in the literature regarding the relationship between inter-trial variability and task difficulty (Bullock, Hopkins, Martin, & Marino, 2009;Willey & Liu, 2018). Bullock et al (2009) found an increase in run-to-run time variability when the technical difficulty of the skeleton track increased.…”

Inferring perceptual decision making parameters from behavior in production and reproduction tasks

“…Specifically, we evaluate the inference algorithm on synthetic data showing that it is possible to recover individual posterior probabilities for the parameters governing percep- tual uncertainties and parameter of the cost function based on empirical data. Finally, we apply our method to experimental data from two production tasks [32,38], showing that the cost functions and action variability parameters can be recovered.…”

“…This allows a test under realistic conditions, as they occur e.g. in psychophysics tasks as time reproduction [39], throwing [40,38], lifting or walking tasks [11,41]. These values can now be thought of as target values that a subject tries to achieve with her actions and can be interpreted on trial by trial and subject by subject level.…”