scholarly journals Preventing a loss of accuracy of the tennis serve under pressure

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0255060
Author(s):  
Jürgen Beckmann ◽  
Lukas Fimpel ◽  
V. Vanessa Wergin
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Stable Match ◽  
Tennis Players ◽  
Choking Under Pressure ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Junior Athletes ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Highly Skilled ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Tennis Serve

Dynamically squeezing the left hand (left hand dynamic handgrip) has been shown to be effective in preventing choking under pressure in right-handers in a variety of sports. The current study assessed the effectiveness of the left hand dynamic handgrip in preventing a loss of accuracy of tennis serves in competitive situations. Twenty right-handed highly skilled junior athletes performed eight tennis serves at a target without pressure (pre-test), followed by eight serves under pressure (post-test). Ten of the participants conducted the left hand dynamic handgrip prior to the post-test, while the other ten performed an equivalent handgrip with their right hand. The serving accuracy of the group performing the handgrip with their right hand decreased significantly from pre- to post-test, while the accuracy of the left hand dynamic handgrip group remained stable. The results indicate the left hand dynamic handgrip to be effective in preventing reduced accuracy of the tennis serve in competition situations as a form of choking under pressure. This technique could easily be integrated into tennis players’ serving routines and promote stable match performance in competitions.

Alive Still

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathy Curtis
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Severe Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Village Voice

In 1942, at age twenty, after a vision-impaired and rebellious childhood in Richmond, Virginia, Nell Blaine decamped for New York. Operations had corrected her eyesight, and she was newly aware of modern art, so different from the literal style of her youthful drawings. In Manhattan, she met rising young artists and poets. Her life was hectic, with raucous parties in her loft, lovers of both sexes, and freelance design jobs, including a stint at the Village Voice. Initially drawn to the rigorous formalism of Piet Mondrian, she received critical praise for her jazzy abstractions. During the 1950s, she began to paint interiors and landscapes. By 1959, when the Whitney Museum purchased one of her paintings, her career was firmly established. That year, she contracted a severe form of polio on a trip to Greece; suddenly, she was a paraplegic. Undaunted, she taught herself to paint in oil with her left hand, reserving her right hand for watercolors. In her postpolio work, she achieved a freer style, expressive of the joy she found in flowers and landscapes. Living half the year in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and the other half in New York, she took special delight in painting the views from her windows and from her country garden. Critics found her new style irresistible, and she had a loyal circle of collectors; still, she struggled to earn enough money to pay the aides who made her life possible. At her side for her final twenty-nine years was her lover, painter Carolyn Harris.

scholarly journals Handedness results from complementary hemispheric dominance, not global hemispheric dominance: evidence from mechanically coupled bilateral movements

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 729-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth J. Woytowicz ◽  
Kelly P. Westlake ◽  
Jill Whitall ◽  
Robert L. Sainburg
Keyword(s):  
Motor Control ◽  
Dynamic Control ◽  
The Other ◽  
Hemispheric Dominance ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Task Component ◽  
The Right

Two contrasting views of handedness can be described as 1) complementary dominance, in which each hemisphere is specialized for different aspects of motor control, and 2) global dominance, in which the hemisphere contralateral to the dominant arm is specialized for all aspects of motor control. The present study sought to determine which motor lateralization hypothesis best predicts motor performance during common bilateral task of stabilizing an object (e.g., bread) with one hand while applying forces to the object (e.g., slicing) using the other hand. We designed an experimental equivalent of this task, performed in a virtual environment with the unseen arms supported by frictionless air-sleds. The hands were connected by a spring, and the task was to maintain the position of one hand while moving the other hand to a target. Thus the reaching hand was required to take account of the spring load to make smooth and accurate trajectories, while the stabilizer hand was required to impede the spring load to keep a constant position. Right-handed subjects performed two task sessions (right-hand reach and left-hand stabilize; left-hand reach and right-hand stabilize) with the order of the sessions counterbalanced between groups. Our results indicate a hand by task-component interaction such that the right hand showed straighter reaching performance whereas the left hand showed more stable holding performance. These findings provide support for the complementary dominance hypothesis and suggest that the specializations of each cerebral hemisphere for impedance and dynamic control mechanisms are expressed during bilateral interactive tasks. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We provide evidence for interlimb differences in bilateral coordination of reaching and stabilizing functions, demonstrating an advantage for the dominant and nondominant arms for distinct features of control. These results provide the first evidence for complementary specializations of each limb-hemisphere system for different aspects of control within the context of a complementary bilateral task.

Rediscovering Leon Theremin

Tempo ◽  
1991 ◽  
pp. 18-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Montague
Keyword(s):  
Electromagnetic Field ◽  
The Other ◽  
Electronic Instrument ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Vertical Antenna ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Concert Halls ◽  
The Right

In the early 1920s and 30s a strange electronic instrument found its way from Russia into some of the more fashionable ballrooms, night clubs, and concert halls in Europe and America. This exotic new invention, called the ‘theremin’ or ‘thereminvox’, caused a considerable stir. Part of the interest was its unusual sound (like a musical saw mated with a light soprano), but its most dramatic feature was that the performer never actually touched the instrument. He or she simply waved graceful hands near the two antennae (one set vertically, the other looped horizontally) to coax out seamless, melifluous melodies. The proximity of the right hand to the vertical antenna changed the ultrasonic electromagnetic field, thus changing the pitch over about a six-octave range. The left hand (or sometimes a foot pedal) controlled the volume. By gently shaking the right hand at the antenna a vibrato could be achieved, giving performances a little more musical (not to mention choreographic) interest. Fashionable women dressed in long gowns seemed to be favourite photographic subjects of the period as performers, as well as the inventor himself, poised ‘playing the rods’ in full dress tails, arms outstretched like a great conductor–or perhaps sorcerer.

Failure to Sing the Left-Hand Part of the Score during Piano Performance: Loss of the Pitch and Stroop Vocalizations

1989 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Guiard
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Vocal Response ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Performance Loss ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Hand Part ◽  
Continuous Regime ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Right

An experiment compared the ability of classical pianists to sing, during keyboard performance, the right- and the left-hand part of the score being played. Upon instructions requiring them to "sing" one or the other voice of the score, the subjects spontaneously chose to sing and name the notes simultaneously, in keeping with the French traditional way of reading music, thus producing a two- dimensional tonal and verbal vocal act in response to each visual stimulus. Singing the right-hand part of the music, whether in unison with or in place of the right hand, while concurrently playing the left-hand part was judged easy by all subjects, and performance, typically, was correct in all respects. The other task, consisting of singing the left-hand part of the music, was judged more difficult by all subjects, and performance, more often than not, was poor. Careful inspection of the many errors that were recorded in the latter task revealed a few clear-cut regularities. Failures were vocal, but not manual. More specifically, vocal failures took place on the tonal dimension of the vocal response, but not on its verbal dimension: The song, but not the naming of the notes, was prone to fail, with either a loss of the pitch, or a systematic trend toward singing unduly—albeit accurately—the notes of the right-hand part. A number of subjects were found to display this intriguing tonal/verbal dissociation—naming a note at a pitch corresponding to another note—in a continuous regime. It is emphasized that this phenomenon amounts to the spontaneous production of musical events that belong to the Stroop category.

scholarly journals Synchronization Error of Drum Kit Playing with a Metronome at Different Tempi by Professional Drummers

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 491-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinya Fujii ◽  
Masaya Hirashima ◽  
Kazutoshi Kudo ◽  
Tatsuyuki Ohtsuki ◽  
Yoshihiko Nakamura ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
The Other ◽  
Synchronization Error ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Snare Drum ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Right

the present study examined the synchronization error (SE) of drum kit playing by professional drummers with an auditory metronome, focusing on the effects of motor effectors and tempi. Fifteen professional drummers attempted to synchronize a basic drumming pattern with a metronome as precisely as possible at tempi of 60, 120, and 200 beats per minute (bpm). In the 60 and 120 bpm conditions, the right hand (high-hat cymbals) showed small mean SE (∼2 ms), whereas the left hand (snare drum) and right foot (bass drum) preceded the metronome by about 10 ms. In the 200 bpm condition, the right hand was delayed by about 10 ms relative to the metronome, whereas the left hand and right foot showed small SE (∼1 ms). The absolute values of SE were smaller than those reported in previous tapping studies. In addition, the time series of SE were significantly correlated across the motor effectors, suggesting that each limb synchronized in relation to the other limbs rather than independently with the metronome.

Greek Vases in the Otago Museum

1936 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-236
Author(s):  
A. D. Trendall
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Greek Vases ◽  
The Right

Of the recent acquisitions to the Classical Collection of the Otago Museum (Dunedin, New Zealand) the most noteworthy is a particularly fine Attic white ground lekythos of about the middle of the fifth century (Plate XIV). It stands 38 cm. high and is in an excellent state of preservation, having been most carefully repaired with a minimum of repainting, which has affected only the breast of the woman, the right hand of the warrior, and some details of the small figure on top of the stele.The design represents a stele scene of the sort so popular with lekythos artists of this period. To the left stands a woman wearing a sleeved chiton, so thin that it clearly allows her bowed legs to be seen through it; with her left hand she points downward to the base of the stele, which is adorned with a fillet and a wreath. On the other side stands a hoplite with his shield and spear;

Interaction of Vision and Movement via a Mirror

Perception ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (9) ◽  
pp. 1153-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Lewin Altschuler
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Motor Output ◽  
The Other ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
The Right ◽  
Striking Effect

I have noticed a striking effect that vision can have on movement: when a person makes circular motions with both hands, clockwise with the left hand, counterclockwise with the right hand, while watching the reflection of one hand in a parasagitally placed mirror, if one arm makes a vertical excursion, the other arm tends to make the same vertical excursion, but not typically if the excursing arm is viewed in plain vision. This observation may help in understanding how visual feedback via a mirror may be beneficial for rehabilitation of some patients with movement deficits secondary to certain neurologic conditions, and illustrates that the traditional division of neural processes into sensory input and motor output is somewhat arbitrary.

scholarly journals The Effect Ofinitial Practice with Dominant and Non-Dominant Hand on Acquisition, Retention and Transfer of a Complex Motor Task

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 1067-1074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malihe Moones Tousi ◽  
Toktam Emami ◽  
Seyed Mojtaba Hoseini
Keyword(s):  
Movement Time ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Transfer Task ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Dominant Hand ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Post Test ◽  
The Right

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of practice orderwithdominant and non-dominant hand on acquisition, retention and transfer of basketball dribbling skills of female students at Ferdowsi University. The subjects were 20 female students of General Physical Education (19-24), who did not have any experiences in basketball with dominant right hand. They were randomly selected and equally assigned into two groups. The subjects practiced within the program for 4 weeks, 2 times a week and 45 minutes per session. Group A practiced with their dominant right hand for the first four sessions and then switched to their left hand for the second four sessions. Group B practiced reversely. The subjects were assessed by Slalom-Dribble-Test in pre-test and post-test. Retention and transfer tests were performed one week after the exercise was finished. The results showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups in acquisition of dribbling skill (p=0.053). Movement time has been significantly reduced from pre-test to post-test (p=0.00). The results showed better performance of the right hand compared to the left (p=0.042). Both groups had a shorter dribbling time with the right hand compared to the left hand in the post-test and retention test. There was no significant difference between two groups in transfer task (p = 0.16). The results indicate that practicing with dominant and non-dominant limbs in the initial motor learning seems to be important to improve performance of both limbs and to strengthen bilateral competence of the learners.

More Monkey Business

1983 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 81-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole Mendleson
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
Wide Band ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Pleasure ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Side Edge ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Short Piece

It is with great pleasure that I dedicate this short piece to Dr. Barnett. It was his original article, entitled “Monkey Business”, that led to this attempt to find out a little more about monkeys in ancient Mesopotamia.In the collection of terracottas from Ur now in the British Museum there appear three types of moulded relief plaque depicting a man with monkeys. As far as I am aware, except for one plaque without a provenance, all the known examples come from Ur.All the plaques clearly show a man with either one or two monkeys.Type 1 (Pl. XXIVa) shows a bearded man facing right. He wears a close-fitting cap with a wide band and a wraparound skirt down to the calf, with a fringed side edge and a belt. He is bare-chested. In his left hand he holds a lead which is attached to the neckrings of two monkeys, one on his shoulder, the other seated in front of him playing a flute. In his bent right hand the man holds a folded-over object, perhaps another musical instrument (?clappers), possibly to be played by the second monkey which sits on the man's shoulder clutching his cap with its head snuggling down on the head of the man. Both monkeys are long-tailed.There are three examples of this type of plaque in the museum, one almost complete and two fragmentary.

Finger Coordination and Bilateral Deficit during Two-Hand Force Production Tasks Performed by Right-Handed Subjects

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheng Li ◽  
Frederic Danion ◽  
Mark L. Latash ◽  
Zong-Ming Li ◽  
Vladimir M. Zatsiorsky
Keyword(s):  
Force Production ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bilateral Deficit ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Maximal Voluntary Force ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Hand Force ◽  
Bilateral Effects ◽  
The Right

One purpose of the present study was to compare indices of finger coordination during force production by the fingers of the right hand and of the left hand. The other purpose was to study the relation between the phenomena of force deficit during multifinger one-hand tasks and of bilateral force deficit during two-hand tasks. Thirteen healthy right-handed subjects performed maximal voluntary force production tasks with different finger combinations involving fingers of one hand or of both hands together. Fingers of the left hand demonstrated lower peak forces, higher indices of finger enslaving, and similar indices of force deficit. Significant bilateral effects during force production by fingers of both hands acting in parallel were seen only during tasks involving different fingers or finger groups in the two hands (asymmetrical tasks). The bilateral deficit effects were more pronounced in the hand whose fingers generated higher forces. These findings suggest a generalization of an earlier introduced principle of minimization of secondary moments. They also may be interpreted as suggesting that bilateral force deficit is task-specific and may reflect certain optimization principles.

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