Monday 8 August 2011

Perception and coordinated rhythmic movements

When performing or learning skilled behaviour such as coordinated rhythmic movement’s perception and action go hand in hand. However to understand which of these is limiting performance the isolation of either perception or action is required. To achieve this Wilson, Snapp-Childs and Bingham (2010) used two- alternative forced choice judgements (2AFC) and coordinated rhythmic movement performance during their study.
Assessments were performed at baseline and post training. They involved judgement at 90° and 180° and movement at 0° 90° 180°. Further retention tests were performed a week after post training in which just the movement trials were performed. However to assess the role of perception no movement trials were performed during training. Therefore improved movement performance would be due to improved perception. The training consisted of judgement at 90° with up to 14 training sessions or to the point when performance plateaued. A control group did the assessment but no training.
Judgement assessments involved 2AFC at 90° and 180° with no feedback. This consisted of a pair of 2 moving dots with 1 of the pair moving at the target relative phase whilst the other was moving at the same or a different phase. Different phases were +/- 9°, 18°, 27°, 36°, 45°, producing 21 different trial types in randomised order. An additional 1 example assessment was given at the start of the trial
Judgement training was performed at 90°. There was 12 blocks of 2AFC 90° trials per training session. Each block compared 90° to 4 other phases 2 less than and 2 greater than 90°. Trial 1 and 4 were 90° +/- 40° reducing by 10° between each set. Trial 2 and 3 were 90° +/- 20° reducing by 5° between each set. Each of the 4 trials appeared in random order in each block. Feedback was given following judgements. When subjects achieved 85% correct they progressed to the next discrimination set. Maximum of 4 training sessions per set with a maximum 6 received on the last set.

References
Wilson, A. D., W. Snapp-Childs., & G. P. Bingham. (2010), Perceptual Learning Immediately Yields New Stable Motor Coordination. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 36(6), 1508-1514.

1 comment:

  1. Minor things:

    'Coordinated rhythmic movements' - no apostrophe!

    However to understand which of these is limiting performance the isolation of either perception or action is required.
    OK, so the problem with this sentence is what's called 'nomenalisation' of the verbs. You should always try to use verbs in their active form. You talk about 'the isolation of either perception or action'; you've nomenalised the verb 'to isolate' to its noun form 'isolation'. You can do this, but the net effect on the tone of your writing is to lose directness. A good revision tip is to look for verbs that aren't in the 'to do' format and try to rework the sentence so you can use it instead; the typical sign is the word ends in -tion.

    A suggested edit: "However, in order to understand which of these factors is limiting performance in a task, we need to be able to isolate perception from action."

    NB: perception is a nomenalisation (of 'to perceive'; as is 'nomenalisation'!). Sometimes they are perfectly legitimate. The question is, is your sentence more direct and to the point without them?

    They involved judgement at 90° and 180° and movement at 0° 90° 180°.
    Edit: "They involved judgements at 90° and 180°, and movement at 0°, 90° and 180°."

    "However to assess...improved perception
    This is OK, but it lacks a little flow and I'd rearragne a few things. You don't find out till the end of the first sentence that we're now talking about training; start there, because it's a change from the previous sentence.

    In terms of the order of things, I'd dod what we did in the paper and arrange things by Session, and then by activity. So keep all the information describing the judgment assessment methods together, all the information about the action assessment together, and all the information about judgement training together; I'd suggest that order too.

    Otherwise, good! You should redo this section in a new post, and edit the whole thing for clarity along the lines I've suggested. Take everything one sentence at a time, nice clear active sentences (subject->verb->object, 'The cat -> sat on -> the mat' kind of thing). Simple is always the place to start!

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