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Research has shown that large visual illusions and an external focus of attention can improve novice's motor learning. However, the combined effects of these approaches and the underlying mechanisms have yet to be studied. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of a large visual illusion and an external focus on the learning of a dart throwing task in novices and measured the perceptual mechanisms underpinning learning using quiet eye. Forty novice participants were randomly divided into four groups: large visual illusion, external focus of attention, combined large visual illusion and external focus of attention, and control group. The study consisted of a pretest, a practice phase, an immediate retention test, a 24-hr retention test, and a transfer test. Results revealed that all groups increased throwing accuracy and quiet eye duration from pretest to immediate retention. In the immediate retention, 24-hr retention, and transfer test, large visual illusion had greater accuracy and longer quiet eye duration than the control group. In addition, there were no significant differences between the visual illusion and external focus groups for throwing accuracy and quiet eye duration. The findings suggest that combining large visual illusion and external focus can independently improve motor learning but combining these manipulations does not have additive benefits.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of landmarks on learning basketball lay-up in beginners. Twenty-seven females (age = 20.30 ± 0.24 years, height = 164.37 ± 0.53 cm) participated in this study. They were assigned to three groups: no landmark group, colored landmark group, and black and white landmark group. All participants performed basketball lay-up for six sessions. The colored group and black and white group trained with the landmarks on the ground while the no landmark group trained without any landmarks based on a trainer instruction. Posttest was performed at the end of the last session of training and also in the retention test following 72 hr. All trials were assessed through 5-point Likert scales, ranging from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good). The results showed that using landmarks significantly changed the lay-up pattern; however, these changes were not significant for color and lay-up shot accuracy.

This study aimed to examine the impact of internal and external audiovisual imagery on the learning of the badminton long serve skill. A lot of 42 right-handed novice women were selected using availability sampling. Participants were categorized into four groups based on their scores from the visual imagery ability questionnaire and Bucknell auditory questionnaire: Visual-Internal imagery, Visual-External imagery, AudioVisual-Internal imagery and AudioVisual-External imagery groups. To generate an auditory pattern, the shoulder joint's angular velocity of a skilled individual was recorded and translated into sound based on frequency characteristic changes. Subjects underwent four sessions of 40 trials each and subsequently participated in retention and transfer tests. Performance accuracy of the badminton long serve was assessed using the Scott and Fox standard test and repeated measures ANOVA was employed to compare performance across groups during test stages. While no significant differences were noted between groups during the acquisition stages, indicated that subjects in the AudioVisual imagery conditions outperformed those in Visual imagery during the retention test. Additionally, the AudioVisual-Internal Imagery group demonstrated superior performance compared to other groups. Internal imagery groups also exhibited better performance in the later stages of acquisition, retention and transfer tests compared to external imagery groups. These findings suggest that the incorporation of audiovisual imagery utilizing movement sonification, alongside physical practice, improves skill development more effectively than visual imagery alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postural control is influenced by cognition. In most studies, variability of motor output has been considered regardless of variability in patterns of joint coordination. Uncontrolled manifold framework has been applied to decompose the joint's variance in two components. The first component leaves position of the center of mass in anterior-posterior direction (CoMAP) unchanged (VUCM) while the second component is in charge of variations of CoM (VORT). In this study, 30 healthy young volunteers were recruited. The experimental protocol consisted of three random conditions: quiet standing on a narrow wooden block without a cognitive task (NB), quiet standing on a narrow wooden block with an easy cognitive task (NBE), and quiet standing on a narrow wooden block with a difficult cognitive task (NBD). Results showed that CoMAP sway in NB condition was higher than both NBE and NBD conditions (p =.001). VORT in NB condition was higher than NBE and NBD conditions (p =.003). VORT in NB condition was higher than NBE and NBD conditions (p =.003). VUCM was unchanged in all conditions (p = 1.00) and synergy index in NB condition was smaller than NBE and NBD conditions (p =.006). These results showed that postural synergies increased under dual-task conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Mirror neurons have been suggested as a potential neural mechanism of observational learning. This study aims to investigate the effect of self-modeling, skilled model, and learning model on mu rhythm suppression and golf putting acquisition and retention. Methods: The study was conducted on 45 male volunteer students (aged 19.4±0.37 years) in three experimental groups, self-modeling, skilled, and learning models with six sessions of physical and observational training in three periods of pre-test, acquisition, and retention. In the pre-test, after the initial familiarity with the skill, participants performed 10 golf putting actions while scores were recorded. Then, electrical brain waves in C3, C4, and Cz regions were recorded during the observation of 10 golf putting actions by their group-related models. The acquisition period consisted of golf putting training during six sessions, each consisting of six blocks of 10 trials. Before each training block, participants observed golf putting related to their group 10 times in the form of a video. Acquisition and delayed retention tests were also performed by recording scores of 10 golf putting actions, as well as recording electrical brain waves while observing the skill performed by the related model. Results: Mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the mu rhythm suppression in the pre-test was more in the self-modeling group compared to the skilled model and learning model groups, but this suppression was not significantly different in all three groups in the acquisition and retention tests. In putting task variables, all three groups that had no significant difference in the pre-test period made considerable progress in learning the desired skill from the pre-test to the acquisition test, and this progress was somewhat stable until the retention test. Also, both in the acquisition and retention periods, the self-modeling group showed better performance than the other two groups; however, no significant difference was observed between these groups. Conclusion: These results suggest that the model-observer similarity is a crucial factor in modeling interventions and can affect the rate of mu rhythm suppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits of self-talk on motor performance are well documented. However, there is a gap in the literature on basic research into the mechanisms underlying the performance outcomes of self-talk. The purpose of this study was to determine the neuromuscular mechanisms underlying the effects of instructional and motivational self-talk. Fifteen young females participated in a within-subject counterbalanced design under control, instructional, and motivational self-talk conditions. Surface electromyography (sEMG) was recorded from active (the right biceps and triceps brachii) and passive (the frontalis and left biceps brachii) muscles during reproduction of the elbow flexion angle (90°) in the joint position sense test. The self-talk conditions led to a significantly lower EMG activity of the right biceps muscle, decreased co-contraction ratio of right biceps activity to right triceps activity, and reduced absolute error for the elbow joint position sense compared to the control condition. Also, EMG gradients in the passive muscles were observed in the self-talk conditions but not in the control condition. These findings suggest that attention and motivation are the mechanisms that justify the relationship between self-talk and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical literature addressing the effectiveness of self-talk for expert performers is lacking. We addressed this shortcoming within the existent literature and examined the comparative effects of instructional and motivational self-talk on basketball free throw shooting accuracy and salient movement kinematics. We recruited 20 professional basketball players to participate in a 2 x 2 pre/post-test experiment. Free throw accuracy and movement patterns were recorded, with the latter subsequently used to calculate elbow-wrist coordination variability. Results indicated superior shooting accuracy and reduced movement coordination variability for instructional self-talk compared to baseline conditions, whereas no differences emerged for motivational self-talk. Findings from the study help practitioners to better guide skilled performers how best to use self-talk; an area in urgent need of further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of unstable resistance training with blood flow restriction (URT with BFR) on short-term memory, strength and dynamic balance in older adults. Material and Methods. A total of 27 male older adults (age= 62 ± 1.5 years) were randomly divided into two experimental groups: URT with BFR, URT without BFR, and a control group. The training program for the experimental groups consisted of bodyweight Scott exercise (three sessions a week for four weeks). The first two weeks included three sets, each set consisted of 15 repetitions at 60-second intervals. The second two weeks included four sets, with each set consisting of 15 repetitions and the use of weight constituting 5% of each person's body weight (mean = 3.5 ± 1.5kg). To restrict blood flow, an 8-cm wide elastic band was used at 72 ± 9 mm Hg arterial pressure. All subjects performed Wechsler memory, 30-sec chair stand test, and timed up and go test (TUG) before and after the intervention. Data analysis was carried out using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and Bonferroni post hoc test. Results. The results showed that URT with BFR was significantly superior to other groups in the variables of strength (p = 0.001), dynamic balance (p = 0.0001) and short-term memory (p = 0.04). Conclusions. These findings suggest that URT with BFR can be a useful training method for older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motor learning is a relatively permanent change in motor performance. Also, one of the factors that can affect movement acquisition and movement patterns is pain and injury. The present study aims to investigate the effect of the induced local and remote pain during dart-throwing skill acquisition by examining motor skill accuracy and coordination variability. Three groups of 30 participants with a mean age of 18–25 were randomly assigned to local and remote pain or control groups. Capsaicin gel was applied to the pain groups for measuring the severity of pain using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). The results revealed that pain had no impact on dart-throwing skill acquisition, and there was no significant difference (p = 0.732) among the three groups at three stages of retention test. The results also showed that there was a significant difference among the three groups in terms of variability in shoulder-elbow (p = 0.025) and elbow-wrist joints (p = 0.000) in the deceleration and dart-throwing phases. The Central Nervous System seems to make adjustments when the task is associated with pain during the acquisition phase. Also, the groups with or without pain have notably various strategies, so differently, to perceive motor skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on pain are generally conducted for two purposes: first, to study patients with pain who have physical changes due to nerve and muscle lesions, and second, to regain the appropriate kinematic post-pain pattern. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of pain on the coordination variability pattern and throw accuracy. Participants included 30 people with a mean age of 18-25 years who volunteered to participate in the study. Individuals were randomly divided into three groups of local pain, remote pain, and control group. Without pain, participants practiced and acquired skills in 10 blocks of 15 trials. In the retention and transition phase, which were associated with pain, in their respective groups, included 1 hour, 24- hour, and 1- week acquisition; they were re-tested twice in a 15-block trial, which was once with and without pain. The results revealed that pain did not affect the throwing accuracy (p = 0.469). Besides, in the phase of decreasing acceleration in throwing, movement variability pattern in the pain-related groups in the shoulder and elbow joints (p = 0.000), elbow and wrist (p = 0.000), were more than the painless groups. Based on the results, it can be said that the increase in variability in pain-related groups is due to the different strategies and patterns that individuals use to avoid pain. Also, despite the pain, the nervous system attempts to increase the variability find the least painful pattern of movement and reduces this variability over time and using a repetitive pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quiet eye is a characteristic of highly skilled perceptual and motor performance that is considered as the final fixation toward a target before movement initiation. The aim of this study was to extend quiet eye–related knowledge by investigating expertise effects on overall quiet eye duration among expert and near-expert basketball players, as well as to determine the relative contribution of early and late visual information in a basketball jump shot by comparing the timing components of quiet eye duration (early and late quite eye). Twenty-seven expert and near-expert male basketball players performed the jump shots. Gaze was recorded with the SensoMotoric Instruments eye tracking glasses and shooting performance accuracy was evaluated by scoring each shot on a scale of 1–8. Six infrared cameras circularly arranged around the participants were used to collect the kinematic information of the players. The performance accuracy, gaze behavior, and kinematic characteristics of the participants during the test were calculated. The experts with longer quiet eye duration had better performance in a basketball jump shot compared to the near-experts. Also the experts had longer early and late quiet eye duration than the near-experts. The results revealed a relationship between quiet eye duration and performance. The combined visual strategy is a more efficient strategy in complex far-aiming tasks such as a basketball jump shot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Paternal training improved the spatial learning and memory of their male offspring. • Maternal training improved the spatial learning and memory of their male offspring. • Paternal training increased the expression of BDNF and ERK1/2 in male offspring. • Paternal training increased the acetylated H3K14 in male offspring's hippocampus. • Maternal training did not affect the expression BDNF, SYT1 and ERK of their offspring. On the basis of recent works demonstrating that environmental factors experienced by parents can affect their offspring, the present study was aimed at investigating whether the learning of a spatial memory task by parents before fertilization can facilitate the same learning in their offspring, and the role each parent can play in this transition. In the present study animals spatially trained (or not) in the Morris water maze were mated, and their 4 week-old male and female pups underwent spatial assessment in the same spatial task. Also, ERK1/2, BDNF, SYT1 and H3K14ac levels in the hippocampus of offspring were analyzed. We found that parental spatial training before fertilization facilitated the spatial learning and memory in their offspring. Interestingly, it was found that this transmission happened from fathers to their male offspring, and from mothers to their female offspring. Moreover, father's spatial training increased expression of BDNF and phosphorylated ERK1/2 specifically in the male offspring. We observed that father's spatial training increased acetylated H3K14 in male offspring's hippocampus, suggesting that histone acetylation may upregulate the expression of BDNF and phosphorylated ERK1/2 in the male offspring of father trained and thus contribute to the enhancement of spatial learning and memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There were two aims to the present study. First, we sought to investigate how a form of self-controlled practice compared to a well-established strategy of explicitly directing a mover's attention externally when performing the standing long jump. Those two forms of practice were also compared to conditions in which participants were instructed to focus their attention internally or neutrally (i.e., control condition). Second, we investigated if the skill level of the participants was a factor in the comparison of these two forms of training (i.e., directing attention externally and self-controlled practice). In the External condition, volunteers were told to focus on jumping toward a cone that was placed in front of them at a distance of 5-m. In the Internal condition, participants were told to focus on the extension of their knees. In the Self-control condition, volunteers were allowed to choose a distant target to focus their attention on while executing the jump. Participants also completed jumps in a Control condition in which no explicit instructions were provided. Results demonstrated that both skilled and low-skilled participants jumped significantly farther in the External and Self-control conditions compared to jumps completed in the Control and Internal conditions. The findings of this study demonstrate that providing instructions that direct attention externally, or allowing the participant to choose where to direct their attention, resulted in similar enhancements in jumping performance in both low- and high-skilled jumpers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of the game-based training program on fundamental movement skills (FMS) and working memory (WM) in male children with Down syndrome. Twenty-one children ages 9 to 11 years were assigned to either a Game- Based Training (GBT) or No-Training (NT) group. The GBT group participated in 12 sessions of game-based training, three sessions per week and 45 minutes per session whereas the NT group just performed normal daily activities. TGMD 2–Test was used to evaluate the motor development quality. The results showed that the GBT group performed better than the NT group in locomotor and manipulative skills. In the Corsi Block Task, although the mean scores of the GBT group were better than the NT group, it was not statistically significant. Our result revealed that after the game-based training program, participant’s scores improved in fundamental movement skills, but no significant improvement was observed in the working memory scores. Therefore, these findings support the positive effect of gamebased training on fundamental movement skills in children with Down syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although the useful effects of motivational feedback on the motor skills learning have been proven, a study focusing on the effects of feedback after good and poor trials in continuous motor tasks has not been conducted. Objective: The purpose of the present study is to examine the effect of feedback after good versus poor trials on continuous motor tasks learning among novices. Methods: Eighteen right-handed students (age 24.66 ± 1.35 years) were randomly divided in two groups (7 males and 2 females each) of good trial and poor trials. All participants completed 11 blocks of 6 trials for a total of 66 practice trials in line-tracking task. After each block of 6 trials, participants in the "feedback after good trials" group received feedback on their 3 best trials in that block, whereas those in the "feedback after poor trials" group received feedback on their 3 poorest trials in the block. The practice was conducted in a day and a retention test was administered after 48 hours. Results: Our findings showed that feedback after good trials versus poor trials is significantly better for learning continuous motor tasks and performance (p < .05). Conclusions: The findings of the present study highlight the motivational role of feedback in learning and performance of a continuous motor task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implicit skills learning such as riding a bicycle and playing a musical instrument play a central role in daily life. Such skills are learned gradually and are retained throughout life. The learning of motor skill occurs with practice, but skill can also increase between sessions, a process termed "off-line learning". In this research, Participants were tested on an implicit version of the Alternating Serial Reaction Time Task and re-tested 6, 24 or 72 h later. ANOVA revealed significant off-line motor skill improvement participants responding faster at the beginning of Session 2 than at the end of Session 1. The elapsed time between the two sessions influenced the improvement of motor skill improvements as well. Thus, participants' response speed improved more after the 24-, 72hr than after the 6-hr. The subsequent paired-samples t-tests conducted separately for all delay groups revealed that the off-line improvement of motor skill was significant in all groups (p< .05), and in all groups the 6, 24, 72-hr delay led to off-line enhancement (p< .05).This demonstrates that implicitly acquired skills can increase between sessions and the process occurs over hours. These findings are consistent with theoretical accounts of procedural skill learning such as the procedural reinstatement theory as well as with previous studies of retention of other motor skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Dalvandpour, N, Zareei, M, Abbasi, H, Abdoli, B, Mohammadian, MA, Rommers, N, and Rössler, R. Focus of attention during ACL injury prevention exercises affects improvements in jump-landing kinematics in soccer players: a randomized controlled trial. J Strength Cond Res 37(2): 337-342, 2023-Anterior cruciate ligament tears are severe and complex knee injuries that commonly occur in soccer. Prevent injuries enhance performance (PEP) is an exercise-based prevention program to effectively reduce anterior cruciate ligament injuries. It is, however, unclear how the delivery of the program contributes to its effectiveness. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the effect of the focus of attention that was emphasized during the delivery of the PEP program on jump-landing kinematics in male, elite-level, U21 soccer players. Forty-two players participated in this randomized controlled trial and were allocated to (a) the internal focus of attention (IF) group, receiving instructions focusing on the execution of the exercise (b), the external focus of attention (EF) group, receiving instructions focusing on the outcome of the exercise, or (c) the control group. Before and after the 8-week intervention, players performed a jump-landing task during which we measured hip and knee angles at the initial contact, peak knee flexion, and peak vertical ground reaction force using a 3-dimensional motion analyzer. A repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to compare groups over time. Significant time-by-group interaction effects with large effect sizes were found for hip flexion at all moments (p < 0.032; η2 > 0.15) and for the knee flexion angle at initial contact and maximum knee flexion (p < 0.001; η2 > 0.35), all in favor of the EF group. This shows that EF during PEP improves hip and knee joint kinematics in the sagittal plane more than IF. Therefore, EF during PEP instructions is preferred to increase the effectiveness of this injury prevention program., (Copyright © 2022 National Strength and Conditioning Association.)