Skill Acquisition

• Open Skill

  Variable and unpredictable environments
• Closed Skill

  Stable and Predictable environments
• Simple Skill

  Requires little concentration
• Complex skill

  requires full attention
• Self Paced Skill

  Performer Controls the start and speed of a skill
• Externally paced Skill

  Performer has no control over the start or speed of the skill
• Gross Skill

  Uses large muscle groups
• Fine skill

  Uses smaller muscle groups
• High organisation Skill

  complicated phases that are difficult to break down
• Low organisation Skill

  clear simple phases which can easily be broken down
• Discrete Skill

  Clear beginning and end
• Serial Skill

  several discrete skills making a more integrated movement or routine
• Continuous Skill

  No clear beginning or end
• Positive Transfer

  The learning of one skill helps the learning of another
• Negative Transfer

  Learning of one skill hinders the learning of another
• Bilateral Transfer

  The learning of one skill is passed across the body from one limb to another
• Whole Practice Method

  Performing a skill in its entirety without breaking it down. Teaches discrete, highly organised and self paced skills
• Progressive Part

  Adding each part of the skill gradually. Teaches serial, complex, lowly organised and externally placed skills
• 1st stage of learning - Cognitive Stage 


  Novice and beginners, learning through observation and instruction (creates a mental image of the skill, extrinsic feedback is relied on
• 2nd stage of learning - Associative stage 


  Amateurs, practice through trial and error, longest period, ability to develop intrinsic feedback begins
• 3rd stage of learning - Autonomous Stage

  Skill is habitual and autonomic. Feedback is mainly intrinsic
• Learning plateau

  A period of no improvement in performance. Happens in the cognitive and autonomous stages.
• strategies to overcome a learning plateau

  distributed practice sessions - allow for rest, resetting goals, use of mental rehearsal, make practices more fun
• Information Processing

  Input, decision making, output, feedback
• Input

  Information is picked from the display using the senses through receptor systems. (sight, auditory sense, kinesthesis, touch, balance)
• Decision Making

  Selective attention is used.
• Strategies to improve selective attention

  Increased intensity of stimuli (brighter coloured ball) , increase fitness levels, practice with distractions, increased time to react.
• DCR - perceptual stage

  The brain receives information from sense organs and interprets it. 1. Detection - picking up important information 2. Comparison - comparing information with information in the long term memory. 3. Recognition - the situation is matched will previous stored memories producing a response.
• Translatory Mechanism

  A motor programme is retrieved from the long term memory to be put into action.
• Output - the effector mechanism

  A response is produced by the muscles through electrical impulses.
• Feedback

  Information used during or after the response to aid movement correction.
• Who introduced the Information processing model?

  Whitting
• Who introduced The working Memory system?

  Baddeley and Hitch (1978)
• The working memory system - central executive

  Overall control over information leaving and entering the working memory.
• The working memory system - Phonological Loop

  Auditory Information presented from senses is processed. Contains a phonological store and articulatory system to produce language.
• The working memory system - Visuospatial Sketchpad

  Visual and kinaesthetic information processed. Contains a visual cache and inner scribe to produce visual semantics.
• The working memory system - Episodic Buffer

  Accounts for interaction between working and long-term memory. Takes information from the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad and puts into sequences for long term storage.
• Schema theory

  (Schmidt) Suggests that skills are developed by using existing motor programmes before being adapted through feedback.
• Parameters of a Schema

  Initial Conditions (recognition of the sporting environment), response specifications (options are assessed), sensory consequences (using the senses to guide movement), response outcome.
• response time

  reaction time + movement time