Tag Archives: motor skills

Reading: Attending to the Execution of a Complex Sensorimotor Skill: Expertise Differences, Choking, and Slumps

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Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 2004, Vol. 10, No. 1, 42–54
Author: Rob Gray

Main point:

Experiments with baseball batters (10 expert players, 10 novice players). Exp 1. Three conditions: dual-task when attention was drawn to an extraneous stimuli (sound signal) while player was hitting the ball, dual-task condition when attention was drawn to the hitting process, and single-task condition, when the sound signal could be ignored. Results: in the first condition, novices showed decrease in performance, but not the experts. In the second condition, it was vice-versa. In the single-task condition the experts outperformed the novices, of course.

The author says: “Clearly, unlike more experienced players, novices do not seem to have sufficient available attentional resources to simultaneously hit and attend to extraneous sensory information.”

Reading: Preliminary evidence for reduced cortial activity in experienced guitarists during performance preparation for simple scale playing

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Music Performance Research, Vol 5, 2012
Authors: Wright, Holmes, Blain, Smith

Main point:

In an experiment electroencephalography (EEG) was used to study cortical activity during preparation for movement in experienced and novice guitarists. In the brains of experienced players less cortial activity occurs. Authors say: “motor preparation of experts is more efficient than that of novices.”

My thoughts: Isn’t it the same experiment that they report here?

Reading: Differences in cortical activity related to motor planning between experienced guitarists and non-musicians during guitar playing

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Human Movement Science, Volume 31, Issue 3, June 2012, Pages 567–577
Authors: David J. Wright, Paul S. Holmes, Francesco Di Russo, Michela Loporto, Dave Smith

Main point:

Experiment (n=10+10) with experienced guitarists and non-musicians (received only 15 min instruction on how to play a G-major scale on the guitar) showed no differences in early motor planning, but negative slope and motor potential components had smaller amplitude in the case of experienced players and negative slope began later.

Authors say: “The data may indicate that, for experienced guitarists, a reduced level of effort is required during the motor preparation phase of the task”

My thoughts: the “experienced” players should be professionals (starting from 10 000 h of practice during lifetime) to have bigger contrasts. To gain more statistical power the sample should be bigger. M/F should be equal in groups, or, if there is evidence that it doesn’t matter, I’d like to see it mentioned.

For the first time I saw the term “ecologically valid motor skill”. Wikipedia helps out: “In research, the ecological validity of a study means that the methods, materials and setting of the study must approximate the real-world that is being examined. Unlike internal and external validity, ecological validity is not necessary to the overall validity of a study.”