1. Katherine T. Thomas and Jerry R. Thomas
Chapter 7
Motor behavior
Katherine T. Thomas and Jerry R. Thomas

2. Chapter Objectives Explain what a motor behavior researcher does.
Present the goals of motor behavior, including motor learning, motor control, and motor development.
Explain the research process used by scholars in motor behavior.
Present some of the principles of motor learning, motor control, and motor development.

3. Goals of Motor Behavior
To understand how motor skills are learned, how processes such as feedback and practice improve learning and performance of skills, and how response selection and execution become more efficient and effective
To understand how motor skills are controlled, how the mechanisms in response selection and execution control movement, and how environmental and individual factors affect mechanisms of response selection and execution
To understand how the learning and control of motor skills change across the life span, improving in youth and deteriorating with aging

4. Three Subdisciplines of the Subdiscipline
Motor learning (acquisition of skilled movements as a result of practice)
Motor control (the neural, physical, and behavioral aspects of movement)
Motor development (developmental view of motor learning and motor control across a lifespan)
Contrasting motor learning and motor control
Shift from learning a skill versus “automatic” skill
Motor control essential for every movement—from poorly skilled to well skilled
Motor learning responsible for shift to well skilled

5. Why Use Motor Behavior?
The study of how motor skills are learned, controlled, and developed across the lifespan
Applications often focus on what, how, and how much to practice
Guides us in providing better situations for learning and practice, including the selection of effective of cues and feedback
Valuable to performers and those who teach motor skills (e.g., physical education teachers, adapted physical educators, gerontologists, physical therapists, and coaches)

6. What Do Motor Behaviorists Do?
Colleges or universities
Teach (motor behavior or related courses such as biomechanics or sport psychology, research methods, measurement and evaluation, and pedagogy and youth sport)
Research
Service
Other research facilities: hospitals, industry, military
Research with applications related to setting
Grant writing

7. Motor Movements Beyond Sport
Babies learning to use a fork and spoon
Dentists learning to control drill while looking in a mirror
Surgeons controlling a scalpel; microsurgeons using laser
Children learning to ride a bicycle or to roller skate
Teenagers learning to drive
Dancers performing choreographed movements
Pilots learning to control an airplane
Children learning to control a pencil or type on a keyboard

8. History of Motor Behavior
Five themes have persisted in motor behavior research.
Knowledge of results (feedback)
Distribution of practice
Transfer of training
Retention
Individual differences
(continued)

9. History of Motor Behavior (continued)
Late 1800s-early 1900s: motor skills to understand cognition and neural control
: World War II era meant great research interest
1940s-1960s: Glassow, Rarick, Espenschade—research focused on how children acquire motor skills
(continued)

10. History of Motor Behavior (continued)
Memory drum theory: Franklin Henry, father of motor behavior
Motor behavior as a subdiscipline of kinesiology
1970s-present
The influence of growth and maturation on motor performance
Developmental patterns of fundamental movements

11. Research Methods for Motor Behavior
Types of studies (experimental designs)
Between group
Within group
Descriptive (participants receive no treatment)
Studying the early stages of learning (novel tasks)
Studying expert performers
Measuring movements (kinematics)
Movement task characteristics (continuous vs. discreet)
Measuring learning and transfer (retention and transfer)

12. Novel Learning Tasks
Ensure that no participant has tried the task before.
Tasks tend to be simple (see figure 7.2).
Allows us to study improvement and how movements are learned.
However, limits what researcher can learn; this approach studies outcome of the movement (the product) rather than nature of the movement (the process).
Novel learning experiments are not helpful for physical activity tasks in which performers have had many trials.

13. Figure 7.2

14. Studying Expert Performers
This is an alternative to studying novel learning tasks.
What do expert performers do during practice and competition? How does it differ from novices?
Decision-making
Skill
Game-performance variables
Knowledge and skills of sport are often highly specific to that sport.
Information helps us understand how learning occurs across many other skills.

15. Overview of Knowledge in Motor Behavior
Information processing
Concept formed to help scientists understand how the central nervous system works.
Conceptualizes brain as a computer, master controller.
Commands sent from brain (CPU) through spinal cord (wiring), which reduces complexity of information for the muscles and muscle groups (printer, screen).
Goal of motor behavior is to explain response selection and response execution.

16. Motor Learning
Goal: understand the role of practice, feedback (intrinsic and extrinsic), and individual differences
Before practice: goal setting, instructions, modeling, and mental practice
During practice: scheduling practice and context of practice
“[P]ractice is a necessary but not sufficient condition for learning” and “practice the results of which are known makes perfect”
Skill acquisition variables versus performance variables

17. Motor Control
Motor programs are proposed memory mechanisms that allow movements to be controlled.
As motor programs are developed, they become more automatic, allowing the performer to concentrate on the use of the movement in performance situations.
Schema theory
Dynamical systems theory has challenged the motor program theory.
Dynamical systems theorists believe that a more direct link (coordinated structure) exists between perception and action, bypassing the need for motor programs.

18. Motor Control – Why?
Which theory—motor program or dynamical systems— more accurately represents the process of motor control?
How well does each explain motor learning and the development of motor expertise?
You could help determine the answer if you pursue motor behavior research at a higher level.
Importance of motor control is clear for professionals in physical education, physical therapy, or athletic training.
Motor control often is not intuitive; easily misunderstood.

19. Motor Control Areas of Study
Degrees of freedom: coordination of movement
Motor equivalency
Serial order of movements: coarticulation
Perceptual integration during movement
Skill acquisition

20. Developmental Motor Learning and Control
Goal: understand skill acquisition across the life span
The two principles of motor development
Children are not miniature adults.
Children are more alike than different.
Topics studied
Developmental changes in the mechanics of movement
Life span development
Experience
Changing neuromuscular systems across the life span
Growth and gender in the development of overhand throwing