MECHANISMS INVOLVED IN LEARNING A PHYSICAL SKILL

1. MECHANISMS INVOLVED IN LEARNING A PHYSICAL SKILL Input & Information Processing Week 3

2. 4 Stage Model of Processing a Physical Skill Simplified Model • Input – received via the senses • Information processing • Output • Feedback • See page 19

3. Input – the senses • Your senses are responsible for detecting pieces of information (cue) and conveying them to the brain • The information and signals we receive about the skill from our senses • Vision • Hearing • Touch • Equilibrium: _________________________ ____________________________________ • Proprioception: ______________________ ____________________________________

4. Information Processing • Now that your _______ have detected cues and transferred them to the brain you need to process the information to make it useful • In this way we are very much like a ________ • Three very important devices carry out these processes: • Perceptual mechanism • Decision-making mechanism • Effector mechanism

5. Perceptual Mechanism • Responsible for interpretation of sensory information • Signal detection (ability to detect ________) is imperative for successful performance • Factors that affect your signal detection are: 1. Ability of the sense organs 2. Strength of the cue 3. Noise 4. Speed of the cue 5. Level of arousal

6. Signal Detection Activity (p.44 Nelson) • Discussion questions: • 1. What is signal detection? • 2. Explain which signal (or cue) was easier to respond to and how this affected the results • 3. Were the results for the second trial different from the first? Explain • 4. What implications does this have for the processing of information in a sporting situation?

7. Ability of the Sense Organs • Also known as sensory acuity • Affects your ability to initially detect the many cues that occur • _________ is most important

8. Strength of the Cue • Cues are easier to detect if the signal is very intense • Eg: yellow footballs for night, yellow tennis balls on a clay court • Other examples?

9. Noise • _________ cues in the environment that can distract a performer • Relevant cues vs. Noise • Need to be able to ignore noise and concentrate on the relevant signal detection • Not just audible distractions! • Sun • Crowd movement • Smell of a nearby BBQ! • Crowd cheering

10. Speed of the Cue • Or, length of time the cue is present • Longer a cue is available the more likely it is to be __________ • Eg: 200km/hr serve doesn’t give much time to detect the spin, angle and speed

11. Level of Arousal • Arousal is the amount of mental energy or preparedness a person has prior to performance • Need to have _________ arousal so that you are ready to detect cues • Two types of arousal can impact negatively on performance • Under-aroused: too _________ or disinterested • Over-aroused: too _________ or over-excited

12. Optimal Arousal Level • At this point the highest degree of learning and ______________ occurs • Varies from person to person • Coach needs to have skills in detecting individual optimal arousal levels • Eg: Roger Federer now vs. early in his career

13. Media Analysis – “The Zone” • Read the article on pages 24 & 25 • Your thoughts… • What is the zone referring to? • Do you believe in the zone? Why/why not? • What are some key parts to being in “the zone”? • Can you think of some elite performances of athletes being in “the zone”?

14. Single Channel Hypothesis • Human information processor can only deal with one cue at a time • Multiple cues must ______ • Therefore, if you reduce the amount of information (cues) you can decrease the processing time required

15. Selective Attention • It would take to long to process every cue and you often don’t have enough time on a sporting field to wait • An experienced athlete can filter out ________ information (selective attention) • This helps to focus more on the relevant cues • Selective attention is affected by: • Level of arousal • Experience and anticipation • Quality of instruction

16. Selective Attention • Experience and anticipation • Skilled performer __________ to concentrate on relevant cues and disregard irrelevant cues • Past experiences help to enable the performer to respond to familiar cues (and anticipate the movements of team mates and opponents) • Quality of instruction • Beginners often don’t know what to concentrate on • A good coach can help to identify and direct learners to attend to the most appropriate cues by providing instructions on why they are important • What else can the coach do? • Page 27

17. Role of Memory • See diagram on page 28 • Information can be stored temporarily or permanently • Three types of memory • Short term sensory store • Short term memory • Long term memory

18. Short Term Sensory Store • _________ capacity • But can only remember for 1 second • Therefore, selective attention selects more relevant information and sends it the short term memory

19. Short Term Memory • Limited capacity • 5-9 items (7 plus or minus 2) • 60 seconds duration • ‘Working’ memory • Learner can use it to improve performance by remembering coaching information and making corrections and modifications

20. Short Term Memory • Short term memory is affected by: • Chunking (coding) • Way of increasing amount of information that can be remembered • Eg: Ph numbers – 5428 3691 not 54283691 • Noise (distraction, interference) • Meaningfulness (relevance) • More likely to remember if you believe it is relevant to your task • Rehearsal (practice) • Must rehearse information for it to be transferred into short term memory • Needs to occur as soon as possible

21. Long Term Memory • Unlimited capacity • ___________ stores information for future use • Rehearsal is necessary to allow for information transfer from short term memory • Retains experiences so that you can recognise and compare them with new incoming information • Motor programs can be stored and then modified as needed for new tasks

22. Memory Test • Activity 12, page 30 • Complete with a partner • Respond to questions

23. Decision-Making Mechanism • Final stage of information processing • Constructs a plan of action (motor program) to enact an appropriate physical response • Located in the short term memory • Long term memory can send a motor program to STM and it is compared to information located here to devise the most appropriate response

24. Homework Tasks • In your own words define the following key terms: • Proprioception • Perceptual mechanism • Signal detection • Noise • Optimal arousal • Selective attention • Chunking • Devise three questions to ask a partner regarding this section