NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS

18JAN2019
I. WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
a. Motor Skills/Actions
i. End goal; goal-directed
1. Moving an object from point A to point B
2. Walking to the top of the stairs
ii. Voluntary control; conscious component of how we are trying to achieve
the end goal
iii. Sequencing of parts
iv. Need to be learned
b. Movements
i. Joint/segment motions or patterns
1. Can’t complete a goal without a movement component
2. Exception = reflexes or being pushed and then falling
a. Control aspect is not completely voluntary in these situations
c. Neuromotor Processes
i. CNS and PNS
1. Sensory and motor components that allow us to move and complete
our actions from there
ii. Decision-making (to eventually get to end-goal)
1. Allows us to shoot, pass, dribble
iii. Visual identification of the environment
iv. How we use force/positioning (musculoskeletal system)
v. Sensory and motor information
II. WHAT DISTINGUISH ACTIONS, MOVEMENTS, AND NEUROMOTOR PROCESSES
a. Actions, movements, and neuromotor processes represent the order in
which motor control and learning are prioritized
b. People initially learn to achieve action goals
i. Infancy – focused at achieving goals at that level; don’t focus on
processes involved
1. Reaching, crawling, locomoting
c. People use a variety of movements to achieve the same action goal
d. People use a variety of neuromotor processes to perform the same
movement
i. Different styles of shooting a basketball
ii. “Degrees of Freedom Problem”
1. Use degrees of freedom to complete different tasks
2. One degree of freedom can be used for many different tasks
3. Many degrees of freedom can be used to complete one task
e. Different measures are used to evaluate actions, movements, and
neuromotor processes
III. WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
a. Performance
i. Single execution of a task
ii. Evaluate the performance
b. Motor Control
i. Transient/temporary evaluation
1. How are you performing in that moment
c. Motor Learning
 NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS
i. Acquisition of skill through trial and error
ii. Becoming more efficient through repetition/practice/trials of skill DUE TO
EXPERIENCE
1. Not just maturation
d. Motor Development
i. Maturation and growth over time
IV. WHAT IS LEARNING?
a. Relatively permanent change in behavior that is due to experience
b. Change in behavior (in relation to environment)
c. Change is “relatively” permanent
i. Might lose the skill if you stop practicing
ii. Could potentially find a more efficient way to achieve a goal
iii. Disease or injury could lower performance level; have to re-learn to get
back to where you were prior to disease/injury
d. Due to experience (NOT MATURATION)
e. Level of skill  The ability to bring about some end-results with maximum
certainty and minimum outlay of energy, time, or a combination of energy
and time
i. Do people complete tasks in a shorter amount of time? While exerting
less energy?
V. WHY STUDY MOTOR LEARNING?
a. We are born to move but learn to move skillfully
b. Skill is a biological imperative; without it, we would quickly perish
i. Skill is vital to our sense of control of the world around us
ii. We depend on our capacity to learn and perform motor skills
c. Humans are unrivaled in their capacity for acquiring skill

Serial = a set of discrete steps that are repeated over and over (walking)
Continuous = takes a long period of time (driving a car)

23JAN19
I. DEGREES OF FREEDOM PROBLEM
a. We have more options of how to do something than is necessary – we
have to pick one to complete the action
i. We have more degrees of freedom than we’ll ever need to complete
a task
b. DEGREES OF FREEDOM – TENNIS
i. Serving
1. Power of the swing
2. Speed of follow through
3. How high the ball is thrown before being hit
ii. Ball out of reach
1. Reaching with the arm
2. Taking a step to get closer and get more power
iii. The opponent’s weaknesses
c. Many degrees of freedom  one task
i. Flexibility in choosing which actions to make
d. One degree of freedom  many tasks
 NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS
II. REDUNDANCY
a. 2-sided issue
i. Control  how to harness DOF
ii. Flexibility  adapt DOF to change environments
b. Potential solutions
i. Synergies
1. Work together/interact with each other/coupling DOF
a. Coupling muscles/segments to control a simplified
number of them instead of all of them
2. Regulate DOF in a simplified way
ii. Mechanics
1. Physics and biomechanics that play a part in how we move
2. External forces help control movement
a. Walking  gravity is pulling you forward; you don’t have
to control with the body at every point in the movement
iii. Efficiency
1. Using minimum amount of work/energy/TIME to complete a
task
2. As we learn tasks, the amount of work/energy/time is reduced
III. WHAT IS A DEGREE OF FREEDOM?
a. Statistics  the number of values in the final calculation of a statistic that
are free to vary
b. General Science  the number of parameters of the system that may vary
independently
i. Each joint has its own degrees of freedom
IV. DOF PROBLEM
a. Occurs at numerous levels
i. Bones
ii. Joints (102)
iii. Muscles (~103)
iv. Motor units (10?)
v. Neurons (1014)
b. Nikolai Bernstein (1967)
i. Degrees of freedom problem
ii. Redundancy  we have many options/ways to produce one solution
1. Movement tasks are a problem to be solved
c. More DOF than needed; how do we select one
i. Complex movement coordination
ii. Changes associated with learning
1. Novice movement patterns vs. expert movement patterns
d. Acquisition  process of mastering redundant degrees of freedom of the
moving organ, in other words its conversion to a controllable system
GENTILE’S TAXONOMY OF TASKS
FUNCTION OF THE ACTION
Environmen Stability No Stability Transport Transport
tal context Manipulatio Manipulatio No Manipulatio
n n Manipulatio n
n
Stationary No inter-trial Height of
 NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS
regulatory variability the net;
conditions court
dimensions;
stance of
the player
receiving
the serve
Stationary Inter-trial Grip on the
regulatory variability racket
conditions
In motion No inter-trial
regulatory variability
conditions
In motion Inter-trial Returning
regulatory variability the ball
conditions

25JAN19
I. THE Issues
a. Degrees of Freedom (DOF) Problem
i. The brain has to select a certain set of movements from a large
variety available in order to complete a task
b. Serial Order Problem
c. Perceptual-Motor Integration Problem
d. Learning Problem
II. SERIAL ORDER (SEQUENCING AND TIMING) PROBLEM
a. Helps stay focused on the task at hand to avoid errors
b. Sequencing
i. Movement patterns
c. Timing
i. Need to time movements in a sequence correctly to perform a task
correctly
1. Any errors in the timing and sequencing will alter the
performance of the task
d. Spoonerisms
i. “fighting a liar”/ “lighting a fire”
ii. “our queer old Dean” / “our dear old Queen”
iii. Preparing/planning for things that will happen in the future
1. How actions will be carried out
2. How sentences will be spoken
e. Sequencing and order of movements
f. Action slips
i. Prepare action plan(s) in advance, not singularly
ii. Spoonerism
g. Coarticulation
i. Preparing for subsequent movements
h. Can occur over different time scales (units of time)
i. Speaking  syllable, words, sentences, etc.
ii. Sport  gymnastics (floor routine)
 NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS
iii. Driving
III. PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR INTEGRATION
a. Perception varies from person to person
b. Perception can change (it isn’t static)
c. Difference between perception and senses
i. Senses are always ON – not necessarily always perceiving them
d. SENSATION VS. PERCEPTION
i. Stimulus: something that incites or excites the senses
ii. SENSATION IS PASSIVE  occurs when an organism’s senses are
stimulated by energy (light, sound, etc.)
1. Detects the presence/absence of stimulus
iii. PERCEPTION IS ACTVE  occurs when the organism interrogates the
object/stimulus with the senses
1. Apprehends the meaning contained within the stimulus
e. Perception-Action Coupling
i. Integration
1. Work together
2. Reciprocal info
ii. “We must perceive in order to move, but we must also move in
order to perceive”
1. Gibson (1979)
28JAN19
I. DEGREES OF FREEDOM ARTICLE
a. PCA  synergies
i. Coupling of body segments to find the most efficient way to
complete a task
1. PC1, PC2, PC3 = synergies of the body
b. 19 markers on the body  19 DoF
i. Synergies are connected to 19 DoF/markers  simplified down
into 3 synergies to control all 19 DoF
1. Some DoF are working together in a synergy, others are
working with different synergies  all are working toward
the end goal
c. INTRO PARAGRAPHS
i. DoF PROBLEM  Highlight previous research and address how it
has fallen short – find the gap
1. Freezing (taking DoF away)/releasing
2. How we practice/learn affects how we use the degrees of
freedom
ii. PCAs  Explain PCA and where it has been used in the past (what
makes it a reliable set of statistics
iii. RACEWALKING SYNERGIES
iv. HYPOTHESIS  practice-related changes
1. Bringing up other studies (mechanical, dynamic, etc.)
2. Directly talking about what they will do in the investigation
(“In the present study…”)
d. Issues with the article
i. Interpreting the results (graphs and tables)
ii. Lots of terms that don’t necessarily correlate
 NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS
e. RESULTS – MAIN FINDINGS
i. Normal walking vs. racewalking led to different amounts of
synergies that were present
ii. PC variance  practice effect
1. How PCs being used contributed to practice effects
30JAN19
I. PERCEPTUAL-ACTION COUPLING
a. Pattern that visual system is detecting
i. Pieces of info that are being put together to guide/influence how we
put together our motor actions
b. Integration
i. Work together
ii. Reciprocal information
iii. “we must perceive in order to move, but we must also move in order
to perceive”
c. Dynamic
i. Changeable/modifiable time process
d. PERCEPTION IN SPORT - soccer
i. Skillful movement and activity
ii. TAKING ON A PENALTY KICK
1. Using visual info
2. Many pieces of info will come to the goalie before they decide
how they will take on the PK
a. Body position
b. Which way the kicker is moving his body – approach;
trunk position
c. Eyes of the kicker
d. Dominant foot
e. Strategies and tendencies of how the player will perform
f. Speed of the approach
g. Distance between the ball and the net
h. Weather
i. Texture of the field (turf, grass, dirt)
3. Selective attention
4. How/when will the goalie make a judgement about jumping
left or right?
a. Look at kicker’s “plant foot”
i. Goalies are more successful when they have that
ability
b. Dynamic approach
i. Observe all aspects of the PK to make a judgement
II. TYPES OF PERCEPTION – different receptors that receive input
a. Visual
b. Haptic – touch, pressure, heat, motion
c. Auditory
d. Olfactory
e. Taste
i. BLIND PERSON
1. Lacking visual input
 NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS
2. Other sensory receptors are heightened to compensate for
lack of one sense
3. NEURAL PLASTICITY  allows receptors to be modified IOT be
the most successful with the perceptions available from
different sensory situations
III. LEARNING PROBLEM
a. Learning by doing
i. Trial and error
ii. Physical practice
b. Deliberate practice
i. Focused approach
ii. Intentional
iii. Very structured
iv. Mastery
v. Trying to win
vi. Significant time, energy, and resources
c. Specificity
i. Being able to perform one certain task
d. Neural plasticity
i. Neural pathways are modifiable/can change depending on our
experiences
ii. How we can use certain connections in the nervous system to find
the most efficient way to complete a task
e. LEARNING PROBLEM – woman with MS
i. In performing rehab exercise during physical therapy,
1. Which aspect of the learning problem would be most relevant
here?
a. Learning by doing
b. Deliberate practice
c. Specificity
d. Neural plasticity
01FEB19
MOTOR CONTROL THEORIES
I. CONFIRMATION BIAS  we want to find things that are in agreement with
what we believe is true in the world
a. We look for info that fits our beliefs and we ignore info that doesn’t fit our
beliefs
II. WHAT IS OPEN- AND CLOSED- LOOP CONTROL?
a. Single motor action/performance of a motor task
b. planning, initiating, executing, and monitor movements; sensory info
coming in, motor info going out
c. OPEN – FEEDFORWARD
i. Anticipation
ii. Initial information contains all things necessary to complete the
action
iii. BRAIN  [INSTRUCTIONS; INITIAL INFO]  LIMBS
d. CLOSED – FEEDBACK
i. BRAIN  [INSTRUCTIONS; INITIAL INFO]  LIMBS  CLOSED
FEEDBACK (sensory information)  BRAIN
 NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS
1. Efference copy (comparator)  expectations of our movement
a. Sent out with the brain with the initial movement
instructions
b. Used as a reference for what is expected to happen and
what actually happens
c. If these aren’t the same, sensory information prompts an
adjustment to send a new signal/new set of instructions
i. Command 1 = swing
ii. Command 2 = stop
e. The brain is not always involved
i. Sometimes the system is contained only within the spinal cord
1. Reflexes
a. Thermal pain receptor
b. Afferent pathway
c. Integrating center
d. Efferent pathway
e. Effectors
f. Ascending pathway to the brain
04FEB19
I. EXAM 1
a. All open ended
i. Some content based/vocab – for reading comprehension
ii. APPLY CONCEPTS TO SPECIFIC SITUATIONS/SCENARIOS
1. Rationale to explain
2. Coherency
3. Terminology in context for understanding
4. KNOW SPECIFIC EXAMPLES
II. WHAT IS OPEN- AND CLOSED-LOOP CONTROL
a. Limitation: there is a motor program for literally every movement we
perform
i. We would have to specify every single movement
b. Brain  [open – instructions]  limbs
i. Brain  efference copy (sensory info coming in; expectations of the
situation)
c. Brain  [instruction]  limbs  [closed – feedback]  brain
i. Memory formation occurs at the brain
d. WHAT CHANGES WITH MULTIPLE REPETITIONS?
e. WHAT ARE KEY FEATURES OF MOTOR PROGRAMS?
i. Invariant features – features are RELATIVE to the task
1. Relative timing
2. Relative force
ii. Parameters  things that VARY in what we perform/execute
a. All examples are ABSOLUTE
2. Size
3. Smoothness differences
4. Time
5. Direction
6. Limbs
7. Distance
 NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS
8. Force applied
f. INVARIANT FEATURES AND PARAMETERS RELATIVE TO WAKING
i. Parameters
1. Change gait pattern bc of an injury
2. Speed of walking/how quickly we step
3. Stride rate/length
4. Foot/limb trajectory
5. Actions of upper body
6. Ipsilateral pattern
a. Timing (of limbs)
ii. Invariant features
iii. MEMORY  Important part of determining motor program
1. Apply invariant features
2. Select specific parameters to send down to limb to complete
the task
06FEB19
I. WHAT ARE KEY FEATURES OF MOTOR PROGRAMS?
II. DYNAMIC SYSTEMS
a. What are the key properties?
i. Many parts working toward a mutual goal/function
ii. DYNAMIC  things are changing over time
b. There are things in the ENVIRONMENT that influence our behavior
i. Perceptual-motor integration  changes in our behavior
c. Non-linear _____
i. Transition
ii. Move between movement patterns without a conscious shift
iii. Increase instability
d. We don’t need to send all info down to body at once  instead use ORDER
PARAMETERS
i. Overall movement characteristics that define
movement/coordination patterns
ii. Applies to the instructions that are sent from the brain to the limbs
1. Instructions come from a top-down approach
2. Instructions are stored in memories and sent down to limbs in
the form of instructions
e. ATTRACTORS
i. Preferred movement patterns that people perform
ii. “attractor wells”
iii. GAIT EXAMPLE
1. Preferred velocity for a walk/jog/run based on efficiency
2. Get pushed out of walking behavior as velocity increases to
gradually transition and settle into attractor for jogging
3. Can change preferred speed with TRAINING
a. Attractor states can get higher up on the “graph” or
flatten out
iv. Contralateral movements of arms and legs while walking
v. Sequence patterns of limbs while kicking/throwing
f. CONTROL PARAMETERS – ways to change attractors; specify why general
movement characteristics are
 NEED TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTS
i. Velocity
ii. Training
iii. Injury
iv. Environment
g. How control parameters, instructions, and order parameters influence how
we move
i.