The Effects of Manipulating Task Difficulty and Feedback Frequency on Children’s Dart Throwing Accuracy and Consistency

2021 ◽  
pp. 003151252110393
Author(s):  
Fatma Bahri ◽  
Yousri Elghoul ◽  
Liwa Masmoudi ◽  
Cain C. T. Clark ◽  
Jordan M. Glenn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Motor Coordination ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Fine Motor ◽  
Retention Testing ◽  
Dart Throwing ◽  
Frequency Changes

In the present study we investigated the effects of manipulating task difficulty (constant vs. progressive difficulty) and frequency of knowledge of results (KR) on the accuracy and consistency of children’s performance of a novel fine motor coordination task (dart throwing). We assigned 69 right-handed physical education (PE) students ( M age = 10.73, SD = 0.89 years) to progressive (PDG) or constant difficulty (CDG) groups. PDG and CDG were each split into three subgroups who received varying KR frequency (100%KR, 50%KR, and 33%KR), creating a total of six groups. We increased difficulty in the PDG by manipulating the distance to the target (2 m, 2.37 m, and 3.56 m), while distance to the target was constant for CDG throughout the experiment (2.37 m). We conducted performance assessments during familiarization (pre-test), acquisition (post-test), and retention (retention testing) learning phases under both normal condition (NC) and a time pressure condition (TPC). Repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed a significant effect of difficulty manipulation on skill learning under both NC and TPC. Further analyses revealed that skill learning was enhanced by progressive difficulty manipulation. However, learning was not affected by KR frequency changes. Progressive difficulty practice enhanced both accuracy and consistency, specifically at retention testing. These results suggest that motor learning in children may be enhanced by practicing with progressive increases in difficulty. PE teachers are encouraged to gradually introduce difficulty levels in motor learning tasks that require high accuracy.

Learning, Forgetting, and Relearning: Skill Learning in Children With Language Impairment

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 696-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Adi-Japha ◽  
Haia Abu-Asba
Keyword(s):  
Motor Skills ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Fine Motor ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Retention Testing ◽  
Over Time

Purpose The current study tested whether the difficulties of children with specific language impairment (SLI) in skill acquisition are related to learning processes that occur while practicing a new skill or to the passage of time between practice and later performance. Method The acquisition and retention of a new complex grapho-motor symbol were studied in 5-year-old children with SLI and peers matched for age and nonverbal IQ. The children practiced the production of the symbol for 4 consecutive days. Retention testing took place 10 days later. Results Children with SLI began each practice day slower than their peers but attained similar levels of performance by its end. Although they increased their performance speed within sessions more than their peers, they did not retain their learning as well between sessions. The loss in speed was largest in the 10-day retention interval. They were also less accurate, but accuracy differences decreased over time. Between-session group differences in speed could not fully be accounted for based on fine motor skills. Conclusions In spite of effective within-session learning, children with SLI did not retain the new skill well. The deficit may be attributed to task forgetting in the presence of delayed consolidation processes.

scholarly journals Effects of self-controlled knowledge of performance on motor learning and self-efficacy: A kinematic study

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-196
Author(s):  
Rezvaneh Makki ◽  
Maryam Abdoshahi ◽  
Saeed Ghorbani
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Movement Pattern ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Acquisition Phase ◽  
Dart Throwing ◽  
Coordination Patterns

Abstract Study aim: To evaluate the effects of providing the learners with self-controlled knowledge of performance (KP) on motor learning and self-efficacy (SE) in a dart-throwing motor task. Material and methods: The participants were thirty female university students who were divided into two groups including self-control and yoked groups. Participants performed five blocks of five trials in the acquisition phase, and retention and transfer tests of 10 trials one day later. Intra-limb coordination patterns (movement pattern), throwing scores, and SE (both movement pattern and movement outcome) were measured as dependent variables. Independent t test and one-way ANOVA with repeated measures were used as statistical tests. Results: The self-controlled group performed significantly better than yoked group on movement pattern during the acquisition phase (F1,28 = 24.239, p = 0.001) and the retention test (t28 = –3.074, p = 0.007). However, there were no significant differences between groups in terms of throwing scores and SE during the acquisition, retention, and transfer phases (all p > 0.05). Conclusion: Providing self-controlled KP can improve learning of movement pattern in the novices but do not necessary increase movement outcome or SE.

scholarly journals Testing fine motor coordination via telehealth: Effects of video characteristics on reliability and validity

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 365-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen M Hoenig ◽  
Kristopher Amis ◽  
Carol Edmonds ◽  
Michelle S Morgan ◽  
Lawrence Landerman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Motor Coordination ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Slow Motion ◽  
Criterion Validity ◽  
Fine Motor ◽  
Clinical Practices ◽  
Rater Reliability ◽  
Fine Motor Coordination ◽  
Normal Speed

Background There is limited research about the effects of video quality on the accuracy of assessments of physical function. Methods A repeated measures study design was used to assess reliability and validity of the finger–nose test (FNT) and the finger-tapping test (FTT) carried out with 50 veterans who had impairment in gross and/or fine motor coordination. Videos were scored by expert raters under eight differing conditions, including in-person, high definition video with slow motion review and standard speed videos with varying bit rates and frame rates. Results FTT inter-rater reliability was excellent with slow motion video (ICC 0.98–0.99) and good (ICC 0.59) under the normal speed conditions. Inter-rater reliability for FNT ‘attempts’ was excellent (ICC 0.97–0.99) for all viewing conditions; for FNT ‘misses’ it was good to excellent (ICC 0.89) with slow motion review but substantially worse (ICC 0.44) on the normal speed videos. FTT criterion validity (i.e. compared to slow motion review) was excellent (β = 0.94) for the in-person rater and good ( β = 0.77) on normal speed videos. Criterion validity for FNT ‘attempts’ was excellent under all conditions ( r ≥ 0.97) and for FNT ‘misses’ it was good to excellent under all conditions ( β = 0.61–0.81). Conclusions In general, the inter-rater reliability and validity of the FNT and FTT assessed via video technology is similar to standard clinical practices, but is enhanced with slow motion review and/or higher bit rate.

scholarly journals Neural Correlates of Motor Skill Learning Are Dependent on Both Age and Task Difficulty

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josje M. Bootsma ◽  
Simone R. Caljouw ◽  
Menno P. Veldman ◽  
Natasha M. Maurits ◽  
John C. Rothwell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Motor Learning ◽  
Neural Plasticity ◽  
Motor Skill ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Motor Practice ◽  
And Task

Although a general age-related decline in neural plasticity is evident, the effects of age on neural plasticity after motor practice are inconclusive. Inconsistencies in the literature may be related to between-study differences in task difficulty. Therefore, we aimed to determine the effects of age and task difficulty on motor learning and associated brain activity. We used task-related electroencephalography (EEG) power in the alpha (8–12 Hz) and beta (13–30 Hz) frequency bands to assess neural plasticity before, immediately after, and 24-h after practice of a mirror star tracing task at one of three difficulty levels in healthy younger (19–24 yr) and older (65–86 yr) adults. Results showed an age-related deterioration in motor performance that was more pronounced with increasing task difficulty and was accompanied by a more bilateral activity pattern for older vs. younger adults. Task difficulty affected motor skill retention and neural plasticity specifically in older adults. Older adults that practiced at the low or medium, but not the high, difficulty levels were able to maintain improvements in accuracy at retention and showed modulation of alpha TR-Power after practice. Together, these data indicate that both age and task difficulty affect motor learning, as well as the associated neural plasticity.

scholarly journals Sleep Enhances Learning of a Functional Motor Task in Young Adults

2013 ◽  
Vol 93 (12) ◽  
pp. 1625-1635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alham Al-Sharman ◽  
Catherine F. Siengsukon
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Motor Skills ◽  
Motor Skill ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Physical Therapists ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Time Of Day ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Repeated Measures Design ◽  
Retention Testing

Background Sleep has been demonstrated to enhance simple motor skill learning “offline” in young adults. “Offline learning” refers to either the stabilization or the enhancement of a memory through the passage of time without additional practice. It remains unclear whether a functional motor task will benefit from sleep to produce offline motor skill enhancement. Physical therapists often teach clients functional motor skills; therefore, it is important to understand how sleep affects learning of these skills. Objective The purpose of this study was to determine whether sleep enhances the learning of a functional motor task. Design A prospective, cross-sectional, repeated-measures design was used. Methods Young participants who were healthy (N=24) were randomly assigned to either a sleep group or a no-sleep group. The sleep group practiced a novel walking task in the evening and underwent retention testing the following morning, and the no-sleep group practiced the task in the morning and underwent retention testing in the evening. Outcome measures included time around the walking path and spatiotemporal gait parameters. Results Only participants who slept after practicing the novel walking task demonstrated a significant offline improvement in performance. Compared with the no-sleep group, participants in the sleep group demonstrated a significant decrease in the time around the walking path, an increase in tandem velocity, an increase in tandem step length, and a decline in tandem step time. Limitations Time-of-day effect and inability to ensure a certain amount of sleep quantity and quality of participants were limitations of the study. Conclusions This study is the first to provide evidence that sleep facilitates learning clinically relevant functional motor tasks. Sleep is an important factor that physical therapists should consider when teaching clients motor skills.

scholarly journals Increasing muscle speed drives changes in the neuromuscular transform of motor commands during postnatal development in songbirds

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Adam ◽  
Coen P.H. Elemans
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Fine Motor ◽  
Vocal Development ◽  
Acoustic Features ◽  
Song System ◽  
Motor Commands ◽  
Force Profiles

AbstractProgressive changes in vocal behavior over the course of vocal imitation leaning are often attributed exclusively to developing neural circuits, but the effects of postnatal body changes remain unknown. In songbirds, the syrinx transforms song system motor commands into sound, and exhibits changes during song learning. Here we test the hypothesis that the transformation from motor commands to force trajectories by syringeal muscles functionally changes over vocal development in zebra finches. Our data collected in both sexes show that only in males, muscle speed significantly increases and that supralinear summation occurs and increases with muscle contraction speed. Furthermore, we show that previously reported sub-millisecond spike timing in the avian cortex can be resolved by superfast syringeal muscles and that the sensitivity to spike timing increases with speed. Because motor neuron and muscle properties are tightly linked, we make predictions on the boundaries of the yet unknown motor code that correspond well with cortical activity. Taken together, we show that syringeal muscles undergo essential transformations during song learning that drastically change how neural commands are translated into force profiles and thereby acoustic features. We propose that the song system motor code must compensate for these changes to achieve its acoustic targets. Our data thus supports the hypothesis that the neuromuscular transformation changes over vocal development and emphasizes the need for an embodied view of song motor learning.Significance statementFine motor skill learning typically occurs in a postnatal period when the brain is learning to control a body that is changing dramatically due to growth and development. How the developing body influences motor code formation and vice versa remains largely unknown. Here we show that vocal muscles in songbirds undergo critical transformations during song learning that drastically change how neural commands are translated into force profiles and thereby acoustic features. We propose that the motor code must compensate for these changes to achieve its acoustic targets. Our data thus support the hypothesis that the neuromuscular transformation changes over vocal development and emphasizes the need for an embodied view of song motor learning.

scholarly journals Mutual Skill Learning and Adaptability to Others via Haptic Interaction

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ozge Ozlem Saracbasi ◽  
William Harwin ◽  
Toshiyuki Kondo ◽  
Yoshikatsu Hayashi
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Motor Skills ◽  
Motor Coordination ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Peer Interactions ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Skill Transfer ◽  
Common Goal

When learning a new skill through an unknown environment, should we practice alone, or together with another beginner, or learn from the expert? It is normally helpful to have an expert guiding through unknown environmental dynamics. The guidance from the expert is fundamentally based on mutual interactions. From the perspective of the beginner, one needs to face dual unknown dynamics of the environment and motor coordination of the expert. In a cooperative visuo-haptic motor task, we asked novice participants to bring a virtual mass onto the specified target location under an unknown external force field. The task was completed by an individual or with an expert or another novice. In addition to evaluation of the motor performance, we evaluated the adaptability of the novice participants to a new partner while attempting to achieve a common goal together. The experiment was set in five phases; baseline for skill transfer and adaptability, learning and evaluation for adaptability and skill transfer respectively. The performance of the participants was characterized by using the time to target, effort index, and length of the trajectory. Experimental results suggested that (1) peer-to-peer interactions among paired beginners enhanced the motor learning most, (2) individuals practicing on their own (learning as a single) showed better motor learning than practicing under the expert's guidance, and (3) regarding the adaptability, peer-to-peer interactions induced higher adaptability to a new partner than the novice-to-expert interactions while attempting to achieve a common goal together. Thus, we conclude that the peer-to-peer interactions under a collaborative task can realize the best motor learning of the motor skills through the new environmental dynamics, and adaptability to others in order to achieve a goal together. We suggest that the peer-to-peer learning can induce both adaptability to others and learning of motor skills through the unknown environmental dynamics under mutual interactions. On the other hand, during the peer-to-peer interactions, the novice can learn how to coordinate motion with his/her partner (even though one is a new partner), and thus, is able to learn the motor skills through new environmental dynamics.

scholarly journals Activity in the dorsomedial striatum decreases with improvement in motor coordination

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Cataldi ◽  
Clay Lacefield ◽  
Shashaank N ◽  
Gautam Kumar ◽  
David Sulzer
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Motor Coordination ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Body Position ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Fine Motor ◽  
Dorsolateral Striatum ◽  
Direct Pathway ◽  
Motor Actions ◽  
Dorsomedial Striatum

It is widely thought that during early stages of motor learning, the dorsomedial striatum facilitates the learning of goal-directed actions, and at later stages, the learned actions are transferred to the dorsolateral striatum, which enables motor actions to become a skill or habit. It is however unknown if these striatal regions are simultaneously active as expertise is acquired during practice. To address this question, we developed a treadmill task to track changes in mouse locomotor coordination during practice running at a range of speeds. We analyzed body position and paw movement to evaluate changes in motor coordination over practice using DeepLabCut and custom-built code. By simultaneous evaluation of motor coordination improvements and fiber photometry recordings of neuronal calcium activity during training, we found that direct pathway dorsomedial striatum neurons exhibited reduced activity as the mouse became proficient at running on the treadmill. In contrast, direct pathway activity in dorsolateral striatum was similar throughout training and did not correlate with increased skill proficiency. These results provide new tools to measure changes in fine motor skills during simultaneous recordings of brain activity, revealing fundamental features of the neural substrates of motor learning.

scholarly journals Difficulty Manipulation and Feedback Strategies on Performance During a Novel Fine Motor Coordination Task

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yousri Elghoul ◽  
Fatma Bahri ◽  
Khaled Trabelsi ◽  
Hamdi Chtourou ◽  
Mohamed Frikha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Coordination ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Fine Motor ◽  
Pressure Condition ◽  
Measured Variable ◽  
Free Condition ◽  
Fine Motor Coordination ◽  
Feedback Strategies ◽  
Study Participants

Improving the acquisition and retention of a new motor skill is of great importance. The present study (i) investigated the effects of difficulty manipulation strategies (gradual difficulty), combined with different modalities of feedback (FB) frequency on performance accuracy and consistency when learning a novel fine motor coordination task, and (ii) examined relationships between novel fine motor task performance and executive function (EF), working memory (WM), and perceived difficulty (PD). Thirty-six, right-handed, novice physical education students volunteered to participate in this study. Participants were divided into three progressive difficulty groups (PDG), 100% visual FB (FB1), 50% FB (FB2), and 33% FB (FB3). Progressive difficulty was increased by the manipulation of the distance to the target; 2 m, 2.37 m, and 3.56 m. Three FB modalities were investigated (i.e.: 100% visual FB (100% FB), 50% reduced feedback condition (50% RFB), and 33% reduced feedback conditions (33% RFB)). Performance assessments were conducted following familiarization, acquisition, and retention learning phases. Two stress-conditions of dart throws were investigated (i.e.: free condition (FC) and time pressure condition (TPC)). After the learning intervention, data showed that, under the free condition, the 100% FB group had a significant improvement in accuracy during all learning phases. Under time pressure condition, for the 50% RFB and the 33% RFB group, the measured variable (accuracy and consistency) showed a significant linear improvement in performance. The association between the percentage of RFB frequencies and the task difficulty (50% group) may be a more appropriate and manageable cognitive load compared to the 33% RFB and the 100% FB group. The present findings could have practical implications for practitioners because, while strategies are clearly necessary for improving learning, the efficacy of the process appears to be essentially based on the characteristics of the learners.

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