Knowledge is More than We Can Talk about: Implicit Learning in Motor Skill Acquisition

Abstract

This article discusses the acquisition of knowledge about environmental regulatory features that guide the selection and execution of movements involved in performing open motor skills. First, empirical evidence related to the visual search characteristics of skilled and novice performers is considered to demonstrate that learning environmental regulatory features is an important part of performing an open motor skill. Then, the hypothesis is proposed and discussed that environmental regulatory features can, and probably should, be learned implicitly, which means the features can be learned and used, even though the learner is not consciously aware of the specific characteristics of those features. This article also discusses laboratory-based experiments that provide evidence supporting this hypothesis and presents implications for developing instructional strategies and practice conditions.

Compensatory postural adaptations during continuous, variable amplitude perturbations reveal generalized rather than sequence-specific learning

“…al. (2001) and those who have reported implicit motor sequence learning in upper limb tracking tasks (Pew, 1974;Wulf & Schmidt, 1997;Magill, 1998), performance improvements in the current study could not be attributed to implicit learning of the temporal relationship between perturbation sequence elements. Early differences in behaviour did emerge between random and repeated segments in Protocol A but these differences did not increase with practice as would be expected if participants exploited their prior exposure to the repeated segment.…”

“…This type of learning is often studied using variants of the serial reaction time (SRT) task introduced by Nissen and Bullemer (1987) or upper limb tracking tasks (Pew, 1974;Wulf and Schmidt, 1997;Magill, 1998 occurred for a complex, whole body task requiring participants to track a waveform on a computer screen with corresponding movements of their centre of pressure. The postural movements in this study were voluntaryallowing the CNS to compare predicted outcomes (as signalled by efference copy or predicted sensory consequences) with the actual outcome of the movement as a form of predictive learning that would not occur if participants were responding to a series of externally imposed disturbances.…”

Training Perceptual Skill by Orienting Visual Attention

“…However, it is still not known which instruction method orients attention most effectively. Magill (1998) has also discussed the effectiveness of different instruction methods on learning regular sequences of movement in sports. He noted that specifi cally in the perceptual learning of regular movement patterns in sports, direct cues that emphasize certain movement features can lead to worse performance than indirect cues (implicit learning or guided discovery).…”

“…In addition, perceptual performance can break down under stress conditions (Smeeton et al, 2005). Magill (1998) therefore proposed that attention should be oriented toward the information-rich areas that contain the most important motion features.…”

Questioning Implicit Motor Learning as Instantiated by the Pursuit-Tracking Task

“…Separately, a restricted group of researchers have examined the phenomenon of implicit learning in the motor skills domain (Magill, 1998;Pew, 1974;Shea, Wulf, Whitacre, & Park, 2001;. In this context, the standard situation was proposed by Pew (1974) and consists in a task of pursuit tracking, in which the participant has to follow a target whose movements present certain regularities.…”