Motor Learning Course - PHYL 4518 Week 3 Quiz

Motor Learning Course - PHYL 4518

• Course instructor is Zoe Chan, PhD
• Course code is PHYL 4518
• Course is offered at Mount Royal University
• Course is for Fall 2024 - Week 3

Review of In-Class Exercises

• Gentile's 2-Dimensional Taxonomy of Motor Skills: Categorizes motor skills based on environmental context (closed or open) and body actions (stable, quasi-mobile, and mobile).
  • Stable Body: Movement where the body remains relatively still, with or without objects. Examples include hip opener (static), using chopsticks, sewing, and playing piano.
  • Action Function: Movement where the body is involved in a task and may change position. Examples are sitting to standing; hip opener exercise; squatting with a weight bar, and jumping jacks.
  • Quasi-Mobile Body: Actions involving a shift in body position but where the main action is repetitive and predictable. Examples include sit-to-stand; hip opener (dynamic) stretch; and other repetitive movements.
  • Mobile Body: Movement involving continuous, dynamic changes in body position, with or without objects. Examples include driving a standard automobile; fly fishing; running on a busy street; bowling; and rowing.
• Quasi-mobile body movement: Any movement that involves a significant linear or angular displacement of the center of mass (COM), which is a hypothetical point representing the average location of mass in the body. The center of mass is a key concept in understanding how the body moves and balances.
• Stable Body Actions Movement with no object manipulation
• Quasi-Mobile Body Actions Movement with no object manipulation, but with actions like sit-to-stand and hip-opener stretches.
• Mobile Body Actions Movements with no objects, like running on a treadmill or a busy street.

Measuring and Evaluating Motor Skills and Abilities

• Learning Objectives: Understanding the procedure, differentiating between response outcome and production measures, and understanding significance of reaction time.
• Quality of performance: Importance of monitoring progress, identifying strengths/weaknesses in performance, and how this information can be used to improve motivation and goal setting.
  • Validity: Ensuring the test or measurement accurately reflects what it's intended to measure.
  • Objectivity: The measurement is independent of the person performing it.
• Determining Validity: Key considerations are using different test conditions or procedures to ensure accurate and relevant assessment, including race times, terrain, and other relevant factors.
• Determining Objectivity: Using objective measurements such as time, height, distance, and points scored in sports events.

Determining Reliability and Accuracy

• Importance for accurate results: Reliable and valid tests provide data that can be trusted to reflect skills and abilities consistently.
• Consistency: The reliability of the test is measured by the consistency of results in similar tests, across multiple tests, and by the same or different testers using the same test procedures and same equipment. This reduces errors and variations.
• Technical Measurement Equipment: How specific and technical is the equipment's usage (e.g., comparing skinfolds vs. DEXA)?
  • Real-life changes in performance are distinguished from inconsistencies of how the test is administrated.

Categories of Performance Measures

• Response outcome: Measures the result of the movement without examining how it was performed. Examples include running times, shot distances, and points scored; these all capture what occurred.
• Response production: Measures the process of constructing or producing a movement, including how it was carried out, such as kinetic measurements of the movements, which describes characteristics of movements and doesn’t link to the result, or subjective measures which involve observers' judgements).

Categories of Performance Measures - Outcome

• Speed, Time, Accuracy and Direction: Key components of objective outcome measures.

Categories of Performance Measures - Production

• Kinematic or kinetic measurements: Descriptions of the movement’s characteristics but without relating its result.
• Subjective or Qualitative Measures: Measures that depend on people's judgments, such as when multiple judges rate aspects of a performance of a performer

Categories of Performance Measures (Continued)

• Video Analysis of Movement: Tracking movements through time and space.
• EMG (Electromyography): Measuring muscle electrical activation.
• Time of Contraction: Assessing the timing of muscle activity during movements.
• Strength of Contraction: Measuring the force generated by a muscle during movement.

Measuring Information Processing

• Measurement of psychological performance: Includes cognitive factors involved in performing tasks.
• Reaction time: Measures how quickly a person responds to a stimulus.
• Information processing: How people acquire, decode, manipulate, store, and retrieve information involved in decision-making.

Measuring Information Processing, Additional Details

• Simple RT: One stimulus, one response, fastest RT (150-200 ms).
• Complex RT: Multiple stimuli, each with a corresponding response.
• Choice RT: Multiple stimuli each with a response, but only one choice selected.
• Discrimination RT: Multiple stimuli, but only one relevant.

Measuring Information Processing - Additional Details

• Stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility: The relationship or connection between the stimulus and response.
• Stroop Test: An assessment of the cognitive processes involved in paying attention.

Measuring Information Processing - Real-World Adaptations

• Poor Validity: Lab tests may not always translate accurately to real-world, sports performance or movement tasks.
• Simple Discrete Movements: Laboratory tests frequently use tasks with simple movements.
• Reactive Agility: These tests involve changes in direction or movement in a sudden manner.

Analyzing Information Processing

• Visual Gaze Tracking: Method of measuring and assessing visual attention in relation to decision-making and reaction.
• Visual Occlusion techniques: Method by temporarily blocking or reducing the visual field to evaluate the effect of reduced visual information in motor behaviors; this allows us to see how much visual input is needed to perform the task accurately. Often, this employs special equipment or videos, to limit visual input of study participants, in order to assess the impact of reduced visual input on performance. Methods such as goggles or videos are commonly used to this end.
• Temporal Occlusion: Technique for limiting the visual input over a timeframe, allowing assessment of the effect of reduced temporal information on movement and motor behaviors, this involves reducing or eliminating the visual input at various stages of a movement to understand the role of timing in movement.
• Spatial Occlusion: Technique where parts of the visual field are blocked or covered to assess the effect of reduced spatial information on performance, thus evaluating the role of spatial information in performance and movement accuracy; this is accomplished by covering or obscuring specific parts of the visual scene to see how it affects performance.

Practical Application & Further Studies

• Assessment Scoring Example: The study includes examples of scoring for a particular activity, which may be used as a sample of other assessments and/or study requirements.

This quiz covers Gentile's 2-Dimensional Taxonomy of Motor Skills, focusing on the classification of motor skills based on environmental context and body actions. It is designed for students of the Motor Learning course at Mount Royal University. Review the in-class exercises to prepare for this assessment.