Task 7 - Skill Learning Flashcards
Skill
an ability that can improve over time through practice
Perceptual-motor skills
learned movement patterns and perceptual abilities
F.e. driving a car, dancing, drinking out of a glass & recognizing someone playing out of tune
Cognitive skills
a skill that requires solving or the application of strategies (rather than to execute physical maneuvers or to sharpen your senses)
F.e. playing cards, budgeting money, taking tests, managing time
Skill memories are similar in many respects to episodic and semantic memories
(4 reasons)
- They are long lasting and improved by repeated experiences
- They can’t always be verbalized
- Belongs to nondeclarative memories
- Often are implicit memories (since they are acquired and retrieved without the feelings of remembering associated with recalling episodic memories) – acquired without awareness – & require several repetitions
Closed skill
a skill that involves performing predefined movements that, ideally, never vary (such as gymnastics)
Open skills
a skill in which movements are made on the basis of predictions about changing demands of the environment (f.e. basketball)
Knowledge of results
Feedback about performance of a skill; critical to the effectiveness of practice
– the extent to which practice can lead to further improvements decreases as the amount of practice increases
Power law of practice
a law stating that the degree to which a practical trial improves performance diminishes after a certain point, so that additional trials are needed to further improve the skill; learning occurs quickly at first, then slow
a simple mathematical function (called a power function)
to describe how rapidly individuals will acquire a skill; the number of additional practice trials necessary to improve a skill almost inevitably increases dramatically as the number of completed practice trials increases → power law of practice
Observational learning
the participant observing the film formed memories of the observed performance techniques that he later used to improve his own performance
frequent feedback vs. infrequent feedback
frequent feedback in simple perceptual-motor tasks leads to good performance in the short term but mediocre performance in the long term, whereas infrequent feedback leads to mediocre performance in the short term but better performance in the long term
Massed practice
concentrated, continuous practice of a skill – generally produces better performance in the short term
Spaced practice
practice of a skill that is spread out over several sessions – often leads to better retention in the long run
Constant practice
practice involving a constrained set of material and skills
Variable practice
practice involving the performance of skills in a wide variety of contexts
Variable practice can sometimes lead to slower progress than constant practice
– Gradual training often leads to better overall performance
Explicit learning
a learning process that includes the ability to verbalize about the actions or events being learned – this creates explicit memories (typically involves memorizing a series of successive facts and thus makes heavy demands on working memory)
Implicit learning
learning that occurs without the learner’s awareness of improvements in performance or, in the case of people with amnesia, awareness that practice has occurred
Serial reaction time task
an experimental task (commonly used to study skill learning in people without brain damage) that requires individuals to press keys in specific sequences in the basis of cues provided by a computer; used to study implicit learning
Motor programs (aka habits)
a sequence of movements that an organism can perform automatically (with minimal attention)
- They can be either inborn or learned
- One way to determine whether a skill has become a motor program is to interrupt the action sequence and observe the results
Fitts’s model of skill learning
1st. Cognitive stage
2nd. Associative stage
3rd. Autonomous stage
1st. Cognitive stage
Fitts’s model of skill learning
an individual must exert some effort to encode the skill on the basis of information gained through observation, instruction, and trial and error
– F.e. using written instructions to set up a tent
2nd. Associative stage
Fitts’s model of skill learning
learners begin using stereotyped actions when performing a skill and rely less on actively recalled memories of rules
– F.e. setting up a tent in a fixed sequence, without instructions
3rd. Autonomous stage
Fitts’s model of skill learning
in this stage, a skill or subcomponents of the skill become motor programs
– F.e. Setting up a tent while carrying on a discussion about politics
‘Criticism’ on the model
the three-stage model of skill acquisition is primarily descriptive. It WON’T help you predict how much practice you need to convert your skill memories into motor programs or give you pointers about how and when you should practice
