Motor Learning and Control: Why Messy Practice Works Better
How the brain plans, controls and learns movement, and why the practice that feels best is not always the practice that teaches most.
Try 3 questions
1. You sign your name large on a whiteboard and small on paper. In Schmidt's schema theory, what stays constant between the two?
- The exact muscles that are used
- The absolute speed of each stroke
- The relative timing of the strokes
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Answer: The relative timing of the strokes
A generalized motor program keeps invariant features such as relative timing, while parameters like size, force and muscles can change.
2. People can write a recognizable signature with a pen held in their foot or mouth. What does this suggest?
- Each muscle stores its own memory
- Movements are stored as abstract plans
- Handwriting is fixed by genetics
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Answer: Movements are stored as abstract plans
This 'motor equivalence' shows the same action goal can be achieved by different effectors, implying a representation not tied to specific muscles.
3. Newell's constraints model says movement emerges from the interaction of which three kinds of constraints?
- Brain, spinal cord and muscle
- Coach, rules and equipment
- Individual, environment and task
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Answer: Individual, environment and task
Changing any one, such as ball size (task) or surface (environment), can change the movement pattern that self-organizes.
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