watch and learn seeing is better than doing when acquiring consecutive motor tasks观察和学习观察比连续获得电动机任务时.pdfVIP

Watch and Learn: Seeing Is Better than Doing when Acquiring Consecutive Motor Tasks Beverley C. Larssen, Nicole T. Ong, Nicola J. Hodges* School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Abstract During motor adaptation learning, consecutive physical practice of two different tasks compromises the retention of the first. However, there is evidence that observational practice, while still effectively aiding acquisition, will not lead to interference and hence prove to be a better practice method. Observers and Actors practised in a clockwise (Task A) followed by a counterclockwise (Task B) visually rotated environment, and retention was immediately assessed. An Observe- all and Act-all group were compared to two groups who both physically practised Task A, but then only observed (ObsB) or did not see or practice Task B (NoB). The two observer groups and the NoB control group better retained Task A than Actors, although importantly only the observer groups learnt Task B. RT data and explicit awareness of the rotation suggested that the observers had acquired their respective tasks in a more strategic manner than Actor and Control groups. We conclude that observational practice benefits learning of multiple tasks more than physical practice due to the lack of updating of implicit, internal models for aiming in the former. Citation: Larssen BC, Ong NT, Hodges NJ (2012) Watch and Learn: Seeing Is Better than Doing when Acquiring Consecutive Motor Tasks. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38938. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038938 Editor: Thomas Boraud, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France Received December 30, 2011; Accepted May 16, 2012; Published June 18, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Larssen et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License