What is motor learning?
The permanent acquisition or modification of movement through processes associated with practice/experience
What is implicit motor learning?
- Motor learning (development of movement) that progresses without knowledge of how movement is done or awareness of learning (ex. learning to ride a bike)
- Types: non-associative learning, associative learning, procedural learning
What is explicit learning?
- Motor learning (development of movement) that progresses through cognitive stages in the learning process and depends on working memory function
- Uses factual knowledge that must be recalled (encoding, consolidation, storage, retrieval)
- Learning is optimized with motivation, attention to task, and ability to associate new information with familiar tasks in memory
- Mental imagery
What is non-associative learning?
- Type of implicit motor learning
- Reflex pathways
- Response to repeated stimulus
- Habituation
- Sensitization
What is habituation?
A decrease in responsiveness as a result of repeated exposure to a non-painful stimuli
What is sensitization?
An increase in responsiveness following noxious stimuli (chronic pain)
What is associative learning
- Type of implicit motor learning
- Amygdala, cerebellum, premotor cortex
- Predictions of relationships through classical conditioning and operant conditioning
What is classical conditioning?
Pair stimuli together over time to produce a conditioned response
What is operant conditioning?
Rewarded behaviors are typically repeated, while behaviors with negative consequences are typically avoided
What is procedural learning?
- Type of implicit motor learning
- Basal ganglia
- Repeating movement continually, under varying conditions, can automatically improve performance even without purposeful attention
- Automatically learn rules for movement through “movement schema” and apply the movement to new situations
- Develops slowly through repetition
Mirror learning therapy to improve function in a limb is what type of learning: implicit or explicit?
Implicit motor learning
Which type of motor learning is present early on in life: implicit or explicit?
Implicit because it requires minimal instruction and does not require extrinsic feedback
Which type of motor learning is not present until later on in life: implicit or explicit?
Explicit because it requires more instruction and relies on extrinsic feedback
How is motor performance different from motor learning?
Performance is observable behavior that varies between trials and results in temporary change in movement behavior while learning involves a permanent change in motor capacity
How do we measure motor learning?
- Performance
- Retention
- Ability to adapt or transfer learned skill
What are some characteristics about Schmidt’s Schema Theory?
- Coincides with motor programming theory
- Contains rules for creating spatial and temporal patterns of muscle activity needed to carryout a movement
- Development of recall and recognition schemas
- Variability improves learning
- Cannot explain where initial motor programs are formed, evidence more supportive in children than adults
What is a schema?
An abstract representation stored in memory following multiple or repeated exposure
What is a recall schema?
Storage of basic parameters of movement in short term memory after retrieval from long term memory, the motor system will then create the movement
What is recognition schema?
Evaluating the effectiveness of a movement based on information from sensory inputs
How could you apply Schmidt’s Schema Theory in the clinic?
Practicing task specific interventions under various different conditions
What are some characteristics of the Ecological Theory of motor learning?
- Motor learning is a process that increases the coordination between perception and action in a way that is consistent with the task and environmental constraints
- Search for optimal strategy in task performance
- Perceptual variables can impact movement (understanding of task, types of feedback provided, relevant vs irrelevant information)
- Newer theory, so limited research
How can you apply the Ecological Theory in the clinic?
Repeated practice of interventions under varying conditions while considering more variables to prepare for and modify movement
What are the three stages of Fitts and Posner’s Three Stage Model of motor learning skills?
- Cognitive
- Associative
- Autonomous
Describe the cognitive stage of Fitts and Posner’s Model
- Consciously consider goal of task
- Recognize conditions in environment
- Variety of strategies
- Guided practice
- focusing on “what to do”
