PARTE EXPERIMENTAL

Information which specifies what to do and how a movement should be changed can be beneficial to learning under conditions where it (a) dictates what the goal of the action should be, (b) when it provides a clear and obtain-able reference-of-correctness such that comparisons can be made and (c) when valuable practice time can be circumvented by a strategy that has been shown to be the most effective and/or only way for performing the skill. Some of the negative effects of demonstrations and instructions relate to the fact that an unintended strategy might be conveyed in complex tasks where individuals have difficulty extracting the critical information and understanding the requirements.

Even when this information can be adequately perceived and used by a per-former, there are situations where it might be ineffectual or indeed detrimental to success on the task (such as when outcome success is not dependent on a specific technique or strategy). The fact that augmented information also directs attention is an important consideration when deciding how best to facilitate learning. The work of Wulf and colleagues (2002) strongly cautions against pro-viding information which directs the learner’s attention to the movement (i.e.

internally), at the expense of a more effects-related, external focus of attention onto the apparatus, implement or even the augmented feedback. Moreover, an overly explicit, rule-based method of learning can result in performance detriments under conditions of competitive stress.

3.4 CONCLUSIONS

While it should be clear that feedback plays a primarily error-detection role and instructions and demonstrations play an error-correcting role, these roles are not

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always effectively served unless certain conditions are also met. For example, feedback presented on every trial during practice of a relatively simple motor skill will fail to encourage self-generated error-detection mechanisms necessary to ensure effective production when that information is no longer available.

Even though a demonstration might effectively convey a strategy for performing a motor skill, under conditions where many different techniques can lead to successful performance or the technique is complicated such that little under-standing is gained by merely watching, demonstrations alone are unlikely to facilitate learning and may fail to adequately alert to the desired movement and subsequently error. Combining different forms of augmented information might help to increase the saliency of desired movement features as has been sug-gested in earlier reviews of the feedback literature (e.g. Rothstein and Arnold 1976), and also the combination of verbal and visual information might benefit later retention and recall.

Although we have discussed a number of reasons why instructions, demonstra-tions and feedback might have negative consequences for performance and learning, what is important to remember is that all these mechanisms might be operating during the learning process. If a performer is unable to effectively work out what the task requirements are from a demonstration, then an ineffective strategy might be implemented on the basis of this information. This strategy could lead to a decrease in early variability in initial movement attempts, hinder-ing the discovery of the required movement or a successful strategy for attainhinder-ing task success. Additionally, the information conveyed could lead to a detrimental focus onto the movements and away from the effects of the movement on the environment. If the information is conveyed through detailed task instruc-tions, under competitive situations performance might breakdown, in com-parison to the performance of athletes whose practice conditions were less knowledge-heavy.

Often feedback will indirectly specify to the performer what needs changing without the need for additional instruction or demonstration. However, if change is not forthcoming from feedback alone, supplemental information will be needed. Whether this needs to relate to a desired form so that a reference-of-correctness can be formulated will be somewhat dependent on the type of skill to be acquired and perhaps the experience of the learner and conditions under which the skill will be required. Other, less knowledge-rich methods of instruc-tion which encourage variability, problem-solving and atteninstruc-tion to intrinsic sources of error might be effective for encouraging outcome and/or movement success. Indeed, although we have made little discussion as to the importance of cognitive effort in aiding memory and later retention, there is considerable

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research in the field of education to show that active, problem-based methods of instruction and learning are more effective at encouraging long-term retention of information (Ramsden 1993). Discovery-based methods of instruction, where the learner is encouraged to find the solution or strategy for task success should help promote a deeper level of learning and understanding and later recall and transfer to new skills.

SUMMARY

What has been highlighted in this somewhat brief review of the literature on augmented information, is that there are no easy, hard and fast rules for effect-ively providing information to individuals wishing to acquire motor skills. What might be beneficial to performance in one situation, might not necessarily be beneficial in another and therefore it is critical to consider both the condi-tions of practice and later testing condicondi-tions where the skill will be required.

The cognitive processes underlying improvements in practice, especially when a skill is being refined through augmented feedback, might be impaired in later conditions when the skill is required in the absence of the augmented information.

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