Seyed Kavoos Salehi; Davood Homenian; Mahdi Zarghami; Sadegh Satari Fard
Abstract
Learning motor tasks is one of the fundamental attributes of mankind'sexperiences and is a collection of sensitive, cognitive and motor processes. Manyof complex motor behaviors are performed based on a type of order or sequence.In the present study, the developmental differences in motor sequence learningwere ...
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Learning motor tasks is one of the fundamental attributes of mankind'sexperiences and is a collection of sensitive, cognitive and motor processes. Manyof complex motor behaviors are performed based on a type of order or sequence.In the present study, the developmental differences in motor sequence learningwere examined in three groups of children (age range 7,8,10 yr) and one controlgroup of adults. For this purpose, the professional software of sequential stimuli,time record and response error was designed in C++. 48 right-handed participants(3 groups of 12 children and 1 group of 12 adults) who were healthy in theirnervous system and had no prior experience of the mentioned task participated inthis study. The intervention included 10 stages (8 stages for acquisition and 2stages for retention). Performance was assessed by examining changes in accuracyand response coordination. The data were analyzed with factor analysis ofvariance and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The results showed a developmentalprogression in motor sequence learning in all groups. Interestingly, differentdevelopmental trajectories were observed in response accuracy and coordination.There was a significant difference in response accuracy between 7,8-year-oldgroups and adults and 10-year-old groups in the acquisition phase but nosignificant difference was observed between adults and 10-year-old-group. Forresponse coordination, adults responded to the stimuli more synchronously than allchildren and 10-year-old group responded more quickly than 6-year-old group. Inthe retention test, for response accuracy, 10-year-old group's performance wassimilar to adults and for response coordination, adults performed more
synchronously than all groups but 7-year-old group had a delay in responsecoordination compared to the other groups. Overall, the differences observed inresponse accuracy and coordination was consistent with the hypothesis thataccuracy may rely on cortical pathways that show their greatest maturationbetween ages of 7 and 10 whereas coordination may rely on subcortical pathwaysthat continue to develop into young adulthood. The findings suggested that in onehand, various aspects of motor development influence motor learning and on theother hand during the learning of different components of a task, parameters thatare more difficult with regard to motor control ( for example responsecoordination) are acquired and maintained in a longer process.
Kavos Salehi; Davoud Homanian; Mehdi Zarghami; Ishmael Saemi
Volume 2, Issue 3 , October 2010
Abstract
This research aimed to examine the effect of sequential stimuli technique on acquisition, retention and transfer of ocular motor sequence. First sequential stimuli, time record, response error software was designed. 60 right-handed novices (15-18 years) were divided into five groups (blocked – explicit, ...
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This research aimed to examine the effect of sequential stimuli technique on acquisition, retention and transfer of ocular motor sequence. First sequential stimuli, time record, response error software was designed. 60 right-handed novices (15-18 years) were divided into five groups (blocked – explicit, blocked – implicit, random – explicit, random-implicit and control). All groups performed a pretest and then (except control group) participated in five training sessions and in each session performed three blocks of ten trials with blocked and random methods. In explicit groups, participants were aware of the aim of task but in implicit groups, they were unaware. During the acquisition phase, control group were only in lab environment and the day after the acquisition, participants took part in retention and transfer tests. The data were analyzed using student-t, repeated measures and two-way analysis of variance tests. The finding showed that the subjects significantly improved in accuracy and time of response in the acquisition phase (P>0.05); but there was no significant different among groups. However, implicit learning groups progressed as much as the explicit learning groups; this finding explained the effectiveness of implicit knowledge in motor skills learning. The retention test showed that random practice was better than blocked practice in movement accuracy but the type of practice did not affect the retention of sequential reaction time. In transfer test, all groups showed transfer to the new sequence only in accuracy but not response time. However, findings showed blocked practice led to sensorimotor integration and timing, whereas random practice led to better stimulus-response association. Overall findings of this research supported this idea that learning that occurs in the context of interference can show retention and transfer to another task.
