Biomedical subjects

R. A. Schmidt

Publications and source records attributed to R. A. Schmidt.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1994

Feedback-Induced Variability and the Learning of Generalized Motor Programs.

As compared with providing extrinsic feedback on each of a set of practice trials, reducing the feedback frequency in various ways facilitates long-term retention. One explanation is that frequent feedback operates proactively on the subsequent trial, inducing excessive variability that degrades learning. We tested this view by giving or not giving feedback "reminders," where the postresponse feedback was given again just before the next attempt at a task. The reminder manipulation was examined in both blocked and randomized practice sequences during the learning of three limb-patterning tasks. Reminder feedback increased response variability during practice in both random and blocked practice. As measured in retention tests, though, feedback reminders degraded learning in random practice, but not in blocked practice. This implies that the frequently found learning advantages of random, as compared with blocked, practice might be due to feedback's facilitation of retrieval operations in blocked practice (as well as in random practice with feedback reminders); such overfacilitation of retrieval operations has been shown to degrade learning. Additional analyses revealed that random, as compared with blocked, practice enhanced the learning of the fundamental pattern of action (generalized motor program) but had little effect on the ability to scale the pattern in amplitude or time (parameterization).

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PubMed1994

Reducing Knowledge of Results About Relative Versus Absolute Timing: Differential Effects on Learning.

The purpose of the present experiment was to examine further earlier suggestions that a reduced relative frequency of knowledge of results (KR) can enhance the learning of generalized motor programs (GMPs) but at the same time degrade parameter learning, compared with giving KR after every trial (Wulf & Schmidt, 1989; Wulf, Schmidt, & Deubel, 1993). In contrast to these earlier studies, here KR was given separately for relative timing and absolute timing. Subjects practiced three movement patterns that required the same relative timing but different absolute movement times. KR was provided on 100% or 50% of the practice trials for relative timing or absolute timing, respectively. In retention and transfer tests, the groups that had had 50% KR about relative timing demonstrated more effective learning of the relative-timing structure, that is, GMP learning, than the groups that had had 100% KR about relative timing. The KR frequency had no effect on parameterization during retention; yet, when transfer to a task with a novel overall duration was required, the groups given 100% KR about absolute timing were more accurate in parameterization than the groups provided with 50% KR about absolute timing. Thus, the reduced relative KR frequency enhanced GMP learning but had no beneficial effect, or even a degrading effect, on parameter learning. The differential effects of a reduced KR frequency on the learning of relative timing and absolute timing also provide additional support for the dissociation of GMP and parameterization processes.

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PubMed1992

Augmented Kinematic Feedback for Motor Learning.

Although the study of feedback about goal achievement (knowledge of results, KR) has been important for the development principles of augmented information feedback in simple skills, there is reason to question the generalizability of these findings to many common learning situations. A more appropriate type of information for skill learning appears to be augmented kinematic (or kinetic) feedback regarding the movement pattern. The experiments presented here extend recent findings about KR to a paradigm involving kinematic feedback. In Experiment 1, we examined how several kinds of temporal and spatial kinematic information supplement KR in learning. Spatial kinematic variables were more effective than temporal variables, as indicated by performance in a retention test without kinematic feedback. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the schedule of augmented kinematic feedback in a method that paralleled previous KR work. We contrasted averaged schedules of augmented feedback, in which information was given either after every trial or as averaged information after every set of five trials. On retention tests without kinematic feedback given 1 day and 1 week after acquisition, averaged schedules led to enhanced performance over an every-trial format. Together, these results begin to define the variables important in kinematic feedback, and suggest that this feedback may influence learning in ways parallel to KR.

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