Enhancing Human Performance Issues, Theories, and Techniques (1988) / Chapter Skim
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5 Improving Motor Skills
5 Improving Motor Skills
Pages 61-101
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From page 61... ...
Of the three, mental practice appears to be the most promising. It has been shown to produce impressive gains in performance, gains that are even larger when combined with physical practice.
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From page 62... ...
In the combined mental and physical practice groups, practice periods usually involve having subjects either alternate mental and physical practice trials, mentally practice a number of trials and then physically practice, or physically practice a number of trials and then mentally practice. Following this practice period, the subjects' skills were tested under standard conditions to determine whether their performance scores differed as a result of the practice condition administered.
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From page 63... ...
cautious inference that the combined practice group is as good as or better than the physical practice trials only. The most comprehensive review of the mental practice literature to date is that of Feltz and Landers (19831.
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From page 64... ...
The results also showed no differences in effect sizes for sex, age, self-paced versus reactive tasks, and type of research design. Based on their comprehensive review, Feltz and Landers concluded that ''mental practice effects are primarily associated with cognitivesymbolic rather than motor elements of the task" and that these effects "are not just limited to early learning-they are found in early and later stages of learning and may be task specific" (1983:45-461.
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From page 65... ...
For some tasks for which actual physical practice may either be expensive, time-consuming, or physically or mentally fatiguing, the combined practice may be advantageous, since the effects are nearly as good as physical practice with only half the number of physical practice trials. It might be useful in future research to find out whether the gap between physical and combined physical and mental practice could be decreased by increasing physical practice relative to mental practice trials (e.g., a 60:40 or 70:30 ratio of physical to mental practice trials3.
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From page 66... ...
In essence, investigators testing this theory to date have not measured EMG activity during overt task performance and have not measured performance following assessments of EMG activity during mental practice trials (e.g., Harris and Robinson, 19861. Furthermore, the idea that mental practice involves "virtually all of the neural activity" related to the overt performance is called into question by studies examining regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF)
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From page 67... ...
As summarized by Annett (1985:1941: What seems to be emerging is that the representations which are most effective in mental practice are of a rather abstract kind, such as spatial context in Johnson~s experiments, core meaning in Mackay's experiments, and control rules rather than specific movements in the tracing experiment. If each of these rather different skills is thought of as being controlled by a motor plan then it would appear that rehearsal of critical and invariant elements of the plan which may be represented in imagery is the source of mental practice effects.
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From page 68... ...
68 ENHANCING HUMAN PERFORMANCE that concentrates on such sport skills as golf (men's, women's, putting, and driving) , skiing (downhill and cross-country)
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From page 69... ...
On the basis of the extensive research literature on mental practice, it is conceivable that programs like SyberVision~ could improve performance. However, SyberVision~ is a broad-based package that includes elements of modeling and imagery, a training guide, tips from professional athletes, and common psychological characteristics of winners.
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From page 70... ...
When mental practice is examined for motor tasks having significant cognitive components or when it is combine,d with physical practice, the performance gains are much greater. The explanation for mental practice effects appears to be related to symbolic rehearsal of critical and invariant elements (i.e., control rules)
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From page 71... ...
to focus attention better and (2) visual training to develop the eye muscles.
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From page 72... ...
VISUAL TRAINING PROGRAMS Other programs designed to improve attentional skills assume that concentration is a combined visual and mental skill. The basic rationale is that, for those who are free of inherent visual abnormalities, exercises for the muscles surrounding the eye will improve visual abilities and thus enhance performance.
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From page 73... ...
The first consists of basic visual training. While keeping their heads still, subjects perform tasks involving eye pursuits and tracking, visual accommodation and convergence, saccades, and binocularity (i.e., phorias)
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From page 74... ...
In addition, the number of subjects in the control group is unclear, and there was no control for a Hawthorne effect. To be able to more clearly attribute this performance enhancement to visual training, the performance measures for the control and the experimental groups should be examined before, during, and immediately following the training period.
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From page 75... ...
Vision is one of the more important senses in task performance, and training of visual abilities related to a
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From page 76... ...
According to the long-standing principle of specificity of motor skills (Henry, 1968) , the visual training tests must be very similar to the criterion task if transfer is to occur.
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From page 77... ...
Although there has been considerable biofeedback research dealing with human performance, it has generally failed to clearly demonstrate biofeedback effects, because (1) the effects of biofeedback are often confused with broader therapeutic techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxation or mental imagery (Benson, Dryer, and Hartley, 1978; DeWitt, 1980; French, 1978, 1980; Gillette, 1983; Peper and Schmid, 1983; Powers, 1980; Wilson, Willis, and Bird, 1981)
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From page 78... ...
has reviewed the biofeedback research in areas such as rifle shooting, playing stringed instruments, problem solving, sensory thresholds, learning (reaction time) , sleep, manual dexterity in cold environments, and motion sickness.
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From page 79... ...
found that subjects trained in "active" biofeedback (i.e., producing different levels of tension) performed better on memorizing nonsense syllables, rotary pursuit, and simple reaction time.
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From page 80... ...
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From page 81... ...
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From page 82... ...
Initial enthusiasm led investigators to suggest that alpha enhancement facilitated task performance (Nowlis and Kamiya, 1970) , improved delayed recall (Green, Green, and Walters, 1969)
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From page 83... ...
Similarly, alpha training was not related to performance on more complex cognitive tasks requiring any degree of effort (Orne et al., 19751. Finally, alpha enhancement does not prevent sleep loss or substitute for sleep (Hord et al., 1975; Hord et al., 1976)
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From page 84... ...
. In vigilance tasks, a performance decrement usually occurs as a function of time spent continuously monitoring.
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From page 85... ...
. theta suppression may prevent or lessen performance decrements that are typically found in vigilance tasks of long duration.
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From page 86... ...
Slow Potentials Slow potentials refers to the characteristic slow negative potential shifts (DC shifts) recorded from the scalp that are often observed during
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From page 87... ...
This research demonstrates the effectiveness of negative slow wave shifts on task performance and suggests specificity in the relation between type of task and the location of the negative shift the cerebral area assumed to contribute to task performance. Idling ~ naradi~m involving feedback generated by movement of a stylized representation of a rocket ship across a television screen tsee Elbert et al., 1979, for a detailed description)
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From page 88... ...
Further research is also needed to determine if extended biofeedback or more sophisticated training techniques can overcome the present limitations of relatively poor slow wave differentiation of more complex tasks. Unless this limitation is overcome, self-regulation of slow wave potentials may be incompatible with simultaneous performances which exist in many operational tasks.
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From page 89... ...
HR self-regulation effects on concurrent task performance and (2) HR feedback effects on the economy of effort in performing static and dynamic exercise.
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From page 90... ...
, the relationship of voluntary HR control and task performance under stressful conditions should be studied further. Economy of Effort in Static and Dynamic Exercise A recent area of scientific inquiry has been the use of biofeedback to modulate the HR response to exercise.
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From page 91... ...
With the exception of the Goldstein, Ross, and Brady (1977) study, studies examining dynamic exercise have found that blood pressure does not change; the only apparent training effect appeared to be specific to the target response (HR)
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From page 94... ...
Although this is only a single study, the results are consistent with the running economy results found for HR feedback. Taken together, these results demonstrate that feedback procedures can alter metabolic efficiency during intensive activity in trained athletes.
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From page 95... ...
Comparisons of indoor and outdoor environments have shown that skin temperatures of subjects trained outdoors increased, while ~ A_ +~ AI ~ ~_c~ -~31~ ~1~7 maintain their ~.mneratures when tested in an outdoor environment (Kappes and Chapman, 19841. By contrast, the temperatures of the control subjects continued to go down in the cold environment.
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From page 98... ...
The four subjects in this study were given 20 sessions of EMG and temperature feedback-open-focus attention training following baseline sessions to determine oxygen consumption, heart rate, and systolic blood pressure. To demonstrate acquisition of skill, subjects had to reduce mean EMG levels as well as finger and toe temperature to preestablished criteria.
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From page 99... ...
for the given autonomic variable most relevant to their own autonomic response to the motion sickness experienced before testing. The AFT method is believed to deal directly with the final common path of autonomic manifestations of motion sickness, and thus it should work equally well when the underlying mechanisms are different (e.g., Coriolis acceleration affecting the semicircular canals and linear acceleration affecting the otolith organs)
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From page 100... ...
In other words, the training criteria were not based on EMG, EEG, or HR levels known to be important for effective task performance. In the areas in which biofeedback has shown more consistent performance benefits, the relations between, for example, ERP and various thresholds, slow wave potentials and readiness to respond to various tasks, HR or respiration and running economy, and hand warmth and finger dexterity, have been established by previous research.
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From page 101... ...
The literature on mental practice was reviewed according to meta-analysis procedures in the Feltz, Landers, and Becker paper prepared for the committee. In addition, the subcommittee received briefings from practitioners involved in the development of visual training exercises.
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