Effects of Specific versus Variable Practice on the Retention and Transfer of a Continuous Motor Skill

Heitman, Robert J.; Pugh, Steven F.; Kovaleski, John E.; Norell, Phillip M.; Vicory, James R.

doi:10.2466/pms.100.3c.1107-1113

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(18 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Generally, this finding is in agreement with transfer benefits of variable practice that have been reported for various real-life skills such as, e.g., tennis ( Douvis, 2005 ), wheelchair driving ( Yao et al, 2009 ), and rotatory pursuit skills ( Heitman et al, 2005 ). However, in the present task both practice schedules provided exactly the same amount and format of task-general practice, making it unlikely that one group would have truly improved more on non-specific skills such as stimulus processing or stimulus–response mapping.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Variable training schedules (e.g., randomizing or alternating between different tasks) typically lead to greater performance retention and transfer than blocked schedules ( Shea and Morgan, 1979 ; Magill and Hall, 1990 ). This phenomenon, termed contextual interference (CI), has been observed for a variety of motor tasks such as explicit visuo-motor sequence learning (e.g., Shea and Morgan, 1979 ; Wymbs and Grafton, 2009 ; Tanaka et al, 2010 ), handwriting ( Ste-Marie et al, 2004 ), simple drawing tasks ( Albaret and Thon, 1998 ), various sports skills ( Wrisberg and Liu, 1991 ; Hall et al, 1994 ; Douvis, 2005 , but see: Brady, 2008 ), and certain other complex tasks such as bimanual coordination ( Pauwels et al, 2014 ) and rotatory pursuit skills ( Heitman et al, 2005 ). One prominent theory on the mechanisms of CI argues that variable practice is advantageous because each switch between tasks requires the effortful reconstruction of motor plans in working memory ( Lee and Magill, 1983 ; Immink and Wright, 1998 ; Cross et al, 2007 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Transfer in Motor Sequence Learning: Effects of Practice Schedule and Sequence Context

Müssgens

Ullén

2015

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Transfer (i.e., the application of a learned skill in a novel context) is an important and desirable outcome of motor skill learning. While much research has been devoted to understanding transfer of explicit skills the mechanisms of skill transfer after incidental learning remain poorly understood. The aim of this study was to (1) examine the effect of practice schedule on transfer and (2) investigate whether sequence-specific knowledge can transfer to an unfamiliar sequence context. We trained two groups of participants on an implicit serial response time task under a Constant (one sequence for 10 blocks) or Variable (alternating between two sequences for a total of 10 blocks) practice schedule. We evaluated response times for three types of transfer: task-general transfer to a structurally non-overlapping sequence, inter-manual transfer to a perceptually identical sequence, and sequence-specific transfer to a partially overlapping (three shared triplets) sequence. Results showed partial skill transfer to all three sequences and an advantage of Variable practice only for task-general transfer. Further, we found expression of sequence-specific knowledge for familiar sub-sequences in the overlapping sequence. These findings suggest that (1) constant practice may create interference for task-general transfer and (2) sequence-specific knowledge can transfer to a new sequential context.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transfer in Motor Sequence Learning: Effects of Practice Schedule and Sequence Context

Müssgens

Ullén

2015

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Generalizing one’s skills to new categories, however, is a separate problem. Studies from cognitive, motor, and verbal learning literatures have shown that varied practice results in better transfer to novel variants of a task and sometimes even better performance on the trained task variant (Goode et al, 2008; Heitman et al, 2005; Kerr & Booth, 1978; Landin et al, 1993; Roller et al, 2001; Shea & Kohl, 1990; Vakil & Heled, 2016; Willey & Liu, 2018). Greater breadth during training may promote more general problem-solving strategies and enable more elaborative processing, allowing for a wider variety of associations between stimuli and task parameters (see Craik & Tulving, 1975; Goode et al, 2008; Schmidt, 1975; Shea & Kohl, 1990).…”

Section: Fingerprint Identification and Visual Searchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Specific versus varied practice in perceptual expertise training.

Robson¹,

Tangen²,

Searston³

2022

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We used a longitudinal randomized control experiment to compare the effect of specific practice (training on one form of a task) and varied practice (training on various forms of a task) on perceptual learning and transfer. Participants practiced a visual search task for 10 hours over 2 to 4 weeks. The specific practice group searched for features only in fingerprints during each session, whereas the varied practice group searched for features in five different image categories. Both groups were tested on a series of tasks at four time points: before training, midway through training, immediately after training ended, and 6 to 8 weeks later. The specific group improved more during training and demonstrated greater prepost performance gains than the varied group on a visual search task with untrained fingerprint images. Both groups improved equally on a visual search task with an untrained image category, but only the specific group's performance dropped significantly when tested several weeks later. Finally, both groups improved equally on a series of untrained fingerprint tasks. Practice with respect to a single category (versus many) instills better near transfer, but category-specific and category-general visual search training appear equally effective for developing task-general expertise. Public Significance StatementThe findings in this study suggest that training to find features for 10 hours-in a variety of images including fingerprints, aerial photographs, bark images, bone cancer images, retinas, and footwear impressions-can lead to robust and generalizable perceptual skill with fingerprints. This study also adds to previous work in demonstrating that practice with images from one category (fingerprints in this case) is more effective for improving performance on a trained task with the trained image category than practice with a wide breadth of image categories. Moreover, training across a wide variety of categories (rather than one) does not result in better performance with novel categories in the short term, but it may lead to more generalizable skill in the long term.

show abstract

“…Variability in the degrees of freedom outside of the task-space has been found to be critical to optimizing task goals [ 22 , 23 ]. Yet exploratory movements are themselves thought to facilitate infant motor development [ 24 , 25 ], while task variety benefits learning generalization [ 26 ]. There is a large body of literature that describes variability as a sign of health while invariant behavior is a sign of pathology [ 27 – 31 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Movement distributions of stroke survivors exhibit distinct patterns that evolve with training

Huang

Patton

2016

J NeuroEngineering Rehabil

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: While clinical assessments provide tools for characterizing abilities in motor-impaired individuals, concerns remain over their repeatability and reliability. Typical robot-assisted training studies focus on repetition of prescribed actions, yet such movement data provides an incomplete account of abnormal patterns of coordination. Recent studies have shown positive effects from self-directed movement, yet such a training paradigm leads to challenges in how to quantify and interpret performance. Methods: With data from chronic stroke survivors (n = 10, practicing for 3 days), we tabulated histograms of the displacement, velocity, and acceleration for planar motion, and examined whether modeling of distributions could reveal changes in available movement patterns. We contrasted these results with scalar measures of the range of motion. We performed linear discriminant analysis (LDA) classification with selected histogram features to compare predictions versus actual subject identifiers. As a basis of comparison, we also present an age-matched control group of healthy individuals (n = 10, practicing for 1 day). Results: Analysis of range of motion did not show improvement from self-directed movement training for the stroke survivors in this study. However, examination of distributions indicated that increased multivariate normal components were needed to accurately model the patterns of movement after training. Stroke survivors generally exhibited more complex distributions of motor exploration compared to the age-matched control group. Classification using linear discriminant analysis revealed that movement patterns were identifiable by individual. Individuals in the control group were more difficult to identify using classification methods, consistent with the idea that motor deficits contribute significantly to unique movement signatures. Conclusions: Distribution analysis revealed individual patterns of abnormal coordination in stroke survivors and changes in these patterns with training. These findings were not apparent from scalar metrics that simply summarized properties of motor exploration. Our results suggest new methods for characterizing motor capabilities, and could provide the basis for powerful tools for designing customized therapy.

show abstract

Effects of Specific versus Variable Practice on the Retention and Transfer of a Continuous Motor Skill

Cited by 11 publications

References 17 publications

Transfer in Motor Sequence Learning: Effects of Practice Schedule and Sequence Context

Transfer in Motor Sequence Learning: Effects of Practice Schedule and Sequence Context

Specific versus varied practice in perceptual expertise training.

Movement distributions of stroke survivors exhibit distinct patterns that evolve with training

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About