Observation of an expert model induces a skilled movement coordination pattern in a single session of intermittent practice

Friedman, Jason; Korman, Maria

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-40924-9

Cited by 15 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…In both groups, these improvements did not come at the cost of decreased accuracy, i.e., it was not due to changing relative weights in the speed-accuracy tradeoff. Comparing our experiment to the previous results 17 obtained by observing an expert was also interesting. It seems that the observation groups fell between our analogy and explicit groups, as they weren't significantly different from either group.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

“…Other research shows that the spatial and temporal aspects of a motor task can be regulated separately, using different feedback cues 23,24 . It is interesting to note that in Friedman & Korman 17 , viewing an expert in full speed caused participants to complete the task much faster (26.7% mean improvement for the observation group).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…With no explicit instructions, this transition takes several days (and hundreds of repetitions) to occur. In a previous study, we observed that demonstration by a model can speed up the learning process 17 . In the current experiment, we tested the hypothesis that motor strategy can change when participants are given an appropriate verbal analogy, without explicit instructions or demonstrations on how to perform the task.…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The first task we used was a sequence of planar hand trajectories passing through several targets, in which participants can employ different strategies in order to complete the task more quickly and smoothly. The protocol is similar to the one used in Sosnik et al 16 and Friedman & Korman 17 , a point-to-point drawing task, in which participants are asked to draw lines connecting 4 dots in a specified order (ABCDA).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the target task specifically, we expected participants of the analogy and control groups to improve shortly after the additional instructions were given and then maintain the skillful movement throughout the experiment with little additional gains 19 . Regarding the mirror game, we expected the analogy and explicit groups to reduce the amount of jitter generated in their movement after receiving the instruction, while the control group would maintain their baseline performance.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Analogies can speed up the motor learning process

Zacks

Friedman

2020

Sci Rep

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Analogies have been shown to improve motor learning in various tasks and settings. in this study we tested whether applying analogies can shorten the motor learning process and induce insight and skill improvement in tasks that usually demand many hours of practice. Kinematic measures were used to quantify participant's skill and learning dynamics. For this purpose, we used a drawing task, in which subjects drew lines to connect dots, and a mirror game, in which subjects tracked a moving stimulus. After establishing a baseline, subjects were given an analogy, explicit instructions or no further instruction. We compared their improvement in skill (quantified by coarticulation or smoothness), accuracy and movement duration. Subjects in the analogy and explicit groups improved their coarticulation in the target task, while significant differences were found in the mirror game only at a slow movement frequency between analogy and controls. We conclude that a verbal analogy can be a useful tool for rapidly changing motor kinematics and movement strategy in some circumstances, although in the tasks selected it did not produce better performance in most measurements than explicit guidance. Furthermore, we observed that different movement facets may improve independently from others, and may be selectively affected by verbal instructions. these results suggest an important role for the type of instruction in motor learning. Using analogies in the acquisition of a motor skill has been shown to improve motor learning in various tasks and settings, from throwing a basketball to performing a high jump, and in populations ranging from young children to older adults 1-4. Analogies in the case of motor learning combine various task-relevant rules into a single biomechanical metaphor, usually given to the learner as a verbal instruction. A survey study among researchers and practitioners 5 defined analogy learning as follows: "Learning facilitated by metaphors. The complex structure of the to-be-learned skill is integrated into a simple metaphor that the learner is provided with". Two examples of this method are given: "reach for an apple up in the tree" (for a jumping pattern) and "putting your hand into the cookie jar" (for a basketball shot). The use of analogies in motor learning has been shown to be beneficial both during the learning process and in maintaining performance under pressure 2,6. Most of the research in this field has been done under the implicit/explicit knowledge paradigm. Researchers have defined explicit motor learning as conscious control of a motor task. This type of knowledge structure relies on working memory and is characterized by learning rules that govern the movement and being able to explicitly state such rules. In contrast, implicit knowledge of a motor task doesn't necessitate conscious awareness of specific rules and isn't as demanding on working memory 7. Experiments show that explicit knowledge can hinder performance during the learning process, although this occurs mostly under stressful con...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

mentioning

confidence: 96%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Analogies can speed up the motor learning process

Zacks

Friedman

2020

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Practice schedule and testing per se affect children’s transfer abilities in a grapho-motor task

Ghanamah

Eghbaria-Ghanamah

Karni

et al. 2022

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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The online and offline effects of changing movement timing variability during training on a finger-opposition task

Friedman

Amiaz

Korman

2022

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In motor learning tasks, there is mixed evidence for whether increased task-relevant variability in early learning stages leads to improved outcomes. One problem is that there may be a connection between skill level and motor variability, such that participants who initially have more variability may also perform worse on the task, so will have more room to improve. To avoid this confound, we experimentally manipulated the amount of movement timing variability (MTV) during training to test whether it improves performance. Based on previous studies showing that most of the improvement in finger-opposition tasks comes from optimizing the relative onset time of the finger movements, we used auditory cues (beeps) to guide the onset times of sequential movements during a training session, and then assessed motor performance after the intervention. Participants were assigned to three groups that either: (a) followed a prescribed random rhythm for their finger touches (Variable MTV), (b) followed a fixed rhythm (Fixed control MTV), or (c) produced the entire sequence following a single beep (Unsupervised control MTV). While the intervention was successful in increasing MTV during training for the Variable group, it did not lead to improved outcomes post-training compared to either control group, and the use of fixed timing led to significantly worse performance compared to the Unsupervised control group. These results suggest that manipulating MTV through auditory cues does not produce greater learning than unconstrained training in motor sequence tasks.

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Observation of an expert model induces a skilled movement coordination pattern in a single session of intermittent practice

Cited by 15 publications

References 64 publications

Analogies can speed up the motor learning process

Analogies can speed up the motor learning process

Practice schedule and testing per se affect children’s transfer abilities in a grapho-motor task

The online and offline effects of changing movement timing variability during training on a finger-opposition task

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