KNES 305- CH 1

Motor Behavior

• Is an umbrella term encompassing motor development, motor learning, and motor control.

Motor Development

• Studies the products and processes behind changes in motor behavior throughout life.

Motor Learning

• Focuses on how motor skills are acquired and the factors influencing an individual's ability to perform them.

Motor Control

• Investigates the neural, physical, and behavioral elements of human movement.

Motor Control: Processes of Movement

• Considers the underlying mechanisms of movement, often involving neurophysiology.
• Key issues include:
  • Degrees of freedom problem: how the system limits degrees of freedom to create coordinated movements.
  • Serial order problem: sequencing and timing of movement behaviors is examined.
  • Perceptual-motor integration problem: understanding how perception and action combine.

Motor Learning: Skill Acquisition

• Involves the process of gaining the ability to perform skilled actions.
• Occurs through practice, not maturation or physiological changes.
• Learning is relatively permanent but can not be directly observed.

Motor Skills: Defining Characteristics

• Skills require the use of muscles and limbs.
• Skills must be goal-oriented.
• Skills are considered voluntary actions.
• Skills must be learned or relearned.

Skill Classification

• Sport skills are classified for use by physical educators, coaches, sports psychologists, and researchers.
  • These skills include cognitive, perceptual, and motor skills.
• Developmental taxonomies are important for teachers, coaches, parents, and researchers.
  • These taxonomies include nonlocomotor stability, locomotor, and manipulative skills.

Single-Dimensional Skill Classifications

• Used by teachers, coaches, therapists, trainers, and researchers to classify skills by nature.
  • Continuous skills examples include running, swimming, brushing teeth, and steering a car.
  • Discrete skills examples include throwing, catching, and putting a foot in a shoe.
  • Serial skills examples include wrestling takedowns, basketball layups, driving, cooking, getting dressed, and typing.

Time-Constraint Taxonomy

• Self-paced skills examples include foul shots, golf swings, getting dressed, and cooking.
• Externally-paced skills examples include batting, hockey shots, and showering.

Environmental Predictability

• Open skills examples include football passes, soccer shots, driving, and walking across campus.
• Closed skills examples include bowling and yoga.

Movement precision

• Fine motor skills examples playing piano or writing.
• Gross motor skills examples kicking or striking.

Gentile's Multidimensional Skill Classification

• This classification is used by therapists, coaches, and teachers.
• Regarding environmental conditions, the following can be used:
  • Regulatory conditions are stationary (less complex; e.g., archery).
  • Regulatory conditions are in motion (more complex; e.g., skeet shooting).
  • No intertrial variability is less complex (e.g., T-ball).
  • Intertrial variability is more complex (e.g., golf).
• Action requirements:
  • Body stability is less complex (e.g., foul shot).
  • Body transport more complex (e.g., layup).
  • No manipulation is less complex (e.g., sit up).
  • Manipulation of object or person is more complex (e.g., judo or tennis).

Abilities

• Abilities are genetically determined characteristics affecting movement performance.
  • Abilities examples include agility, strength, and flexibility.

General Motor Ability

• Is an outdated concept that there was one broad/general motor ability that transferred to all sports.
• A specificity hypothesis states that every motor skill requires different abilities or levels of ability.

Fleishman's Taxonomy

• Perceptual-Motor Abilities:
  • Control precision examples include hockey puck handling.
  • Rate control examples include Formula 1 racing.
  • Aiming examples include texting.
  • Response orientation examples include being a quarterback.
• Reaction time examples include being a sprinter.
• Manual dexterity examples include dribbling a basketball.
• Finger dexterity examples include typing.
• Arm-hand steadiness examples include surgical procedures.
• Wrist and finger speed examples include speed stacking.

Physical Proficiency Abilities

• Strength includes:
  • Explosive strength in jump standing long jumps.
  • Static strength using a dynamometer.
  • Trunk strength in pole vaulting.
• Flexibility and speed include:
  • Extent flexibility in yoga.
  • Dynamic flexibility in squat thrusts.
  • Speed of limb movement when throwing a javelin.
• Balance includes:
  • Static balance while standing still on one foot.
  • Dynamic balance in gymnastics.
  • Balancing objects like a circus clown balancing a stick on his nose.
• Coordination includes:
  • Multilimb coordination when driving a manual car.
  • Gross body coordination when hurdling
• Endurance includes:
  • Stamina in a marathon.
  • Dynamic strength in kayaking.

Motor Development: Time Scales of Development

• Phylogeny: Evolutionary development of a species over hundreds or thousands of years.
• Ontogeny: Development over an individual's lifespan.

Key Terms for Motor Development

• Product: Is a measurable outcome.
• Process: Precedes product improvement and is related to maturation.
• Growth: Measurable body changes.
• Maturation: Internal (physiological, sociological, psychological) processes that are difficult to measure.

History of Motor Development

• The field of motor development combines biology (study of growth and maturation in living organisms) and psychology (study of human behavior).
• The field has been divided into four periods:
  • The precursor period.
  • The maturational period.
  • The normative period.
  • The process-oriented period.