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The most widely known studies of rhythmic limb coordination showed that frequency strongly affects the stability of some coordinations (e.g. 180° relative phase) but not others (e.g. 0°). The coupling of such rhythmic limb movements was then shown to be perceptual. Frequency affected the stability of perceptual information. We now investigated whether frequency would impact the pickup of information for learning a novel bimanual coordination pattern (e.g. 90°) and the ability to sustain the coordination at various frequencies. Twenty participants were recruited and assessed on their performance of bimanual coordination at 0°, 180°, and 90° at five scanning frequencies before and after training at 90°, during which they were assigned to practice with either a high (2.5 Hz) or low (0.5 Hz) frequency until attaining proficiency. The results showed that learning was frequency specific. The best post-training performance occurred at the trained frequency. Although the coordination could be acquired through high frequency training, it was at the cost of a greater amount of training and most surprisingly, did not yield improved performance at lower frequencies that are normally thought to be easier. The findings suggest that movement frequency may determine whether visual or kinesthetic information is used for learning and control of bimanual coordination., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Two groups of participants were trained to be proficient at performing bimanual 90° coordination either at a high (2.5 Hz) or low (0.5 Hz) frequency with both kinesthetic and visual information available. At high frequency, participants trained for twice as long to achieve performance comparable to participants training at low frequency. Participants were then paired within (low-low or high-high) or between (low-high) frequency groups to perform a visually coupled dyadic unimanual 90° coordination task, during which they were free to settle at any jointly determined frequency to synchronize their rhythmic movements. The results showed that the coordination skill was frequency-specific. For dyads with one or both members who had learned the 90° bimanual coordination at low frequency, the performance settled at a low frequency (≈0.5 Hz) with more successfully synchronized trials. For dyads with both members who had learned the 90° bimanual coordination at high frequency, they struggled with the task and performed poorly. The dyadic coordination settled at a higher frequency (≈1.5 Hz) on average, but with twice the variability in settling frequency and significantly fewer synchronized trials. The difference between the dyadic coordination and bimanual tasks was that only visual information was available to couple the movements in the former while both kinesthetic and visual information were available in the latter. Therefore, the high frequency group must have relied on kinesthetic information to perform both coordination tasks while the low frequency group was well able to use visual information for both. In the mixed training pairs, the low frequency trained member of the pair was likely responsible for the better performance. These conclusions were consistent with results of previous studies., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A large proportion of school-aged children exhibit poor drawing and handwriting. This prevalence limits the availability of therapy. We developed an automated method for training improved manual compliance control and relatedly, prospective control of a stylus. The approach included a difficult training task, while providing parametrically modifiable support that enables the children to perform successfully while developing good compliance control. The task was to use a stylus to push a bead along a 3D wire path. Support was provided by making the wire magnetically attractive to the stylus. Support was progressively reduced as 3D tracing performance improved. We report studies that (1) compared performance of Typically Developing (TD) children and children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), (2) tested training with active versus passive movement, (3) tested progressively reduced versus constant or no support during training, (4) tested children of different ages, (5) tested the transfer of training to a drawing task, (6) tested the specificity of training in respect to the size, shape and dimensionality of figures, and (7) investigated the relevance of the training task to the Beery VMI, an inventory used to diagnose DCD. The findings were as follows. (1) Pre-training performance of TD and DCD children was the same and good with high support but distinct and poor with low support. Support yielded good self-efficacy that motivated training. Post training performance with no support was improved and the same for TD and DCD children. (2) Actively controlled movements were required for improved performance. (3) Progressively reduced support was required for good performance during and after training. (4) Age differences in performance during pre-training were eliminated post-training. (5) Improvements transferred to drawing. (6) There was no evidence of specificity of training in transfer. (7) Disparate Beery scores were reflected in pre-training but not post-training performance. We conclude that the method improves manual compliance control, and more generally, prospective control of movements used in drawing performance., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

How is information from different sensory modalities coordinated when learning an action? We tested two hypotheses. The first is that the information is amodal. The second is that the information is modality specific and one modality is used in first learning the action and then is used to teach the other modality. We investigated these hypotheses using a rhythmic coordination task. One group of participants learned to perform bimanual coordination at a relative phase of 90° using kinesthesis. A second group used vision to learn unimanual 90° coordination. After training, performance using the alternate modality was tested in each case. Snapp-Childs, Wilson, and Bingham (2015) had found transfer of 50% of learned performance of 90° coordination between the unimanual and bimanual tasks when each had included use of vision. Now, we found essentially no transfer (≈5%) indicating that the information was modality specific. Next, post-training trials performed using the untrained modality were alternated with trials in which kinesthesis and vision were used. The result was that performance using the untrained modality progressively improved. We concluded that trained modality was used to teach the untrained modality and that this likely represents the way information from different sensory modalities is coordinated in performance of actions., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

There are a large number of children with motor difficulties including those that have difficulty producing movements qualitatively well enough to improve in perceptuo-motor learning without intervention. We have developed a training method that supports active movement generation to allow improvement in a 3D tracing task requiring good compliance control. Previously, we tested a limited age range of children and found that training improved performance on the 3D tracing task and that the training transferred to a 2D drawing test. In the present study, school children (5-11years old) with motor difficulties were trained in the 3D tracing task and transfer to a 2D drawing task was tested. We used a cross-over design where half of the children received training on the 3D tracing task during the first training period and the other half of the children received training during the second training period. Given previous results, we predicted that younger children would initially show reduced performance relative to the older children, and that performance at all ages would improve with training. We also predicted that training would transfer to the 2D drawing task. However, the pre-training performance of both younger and older children was equally poor. Nevertheless, post-training performance on the 3D task was dramatically improved for both age groups and the training transferred to the 2D drawing task. Overall, this work contributes to a growing body of literature that demonstrates relatively preserved motor learning in children with motor difficulties and further demonstrates the importance of games in therapeutic interventions., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Previous empirical and theoretical work suggests that effective skill acquisition requires movements to be generated actively and that learning new skills supports the acquisition of prospective control. However, there are many ways in which practice can be structured, that may affect the acquisition and use of prospective control after training. Here, we tested whether the progressive modulation and reduction of support during training was required to yield good performance after training without support. The task was to use a stylus to push a bead over a complex 3D wire path. The support "magnetically" attracted and held the stylus onto the wire. Three groups of adult participants each experienced one of three training regimes: gradual reduction of magnetic attraction, only a medium level of attraction, or low magnetic attraction. The results showed that use of a single (medium) level of support was significantly less effective in yielding good performance with low support after training. Training with low support yielded post-training performance that was equally good as that yielded by training with progressive reduction of support; however, performance during training was significantly poorer in the former. Thus, less support during training yields effective learning but more difficult training sessions. The results are discussed in the context of application to training with special populations., (Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Many children have difficulty producing movements well enough to improve in perceptuo-motor learning. We have developed a training method that supports active movement generation to allow improvement in a 3D tracing task requiring good compliance control. We previously tested 7-8 year old children who exhibited poor performance and performance differences before training. After training, performance was significantly improved and performance differences were eliminated. According to the Dynamic Systems Theory of development, appropriate support can enable younger children to acquire the ability to perform like older children. In the present study, we compared 7-8 and 10-12 year old school children and predicted that younger children would show reduced performance that was nonetheless amenable to training. Indeed, the pre-training performance of the 7-8 year olds was worse than that of the 10-12 year olds, but post-training performance was equally good for both groups. This was similar to previous results found using this training method for children with DCD and age-matched typically developing children. We also found in a previous study of 7-8 year old school children that training in the 3D tracing task transferred to a 2D drawing task. We now found similar transfer for the 10-12 year olds., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Bingham, Schmidt, and Rosenblum (Bingham, G. P., Schmidt, R. C., & Rosenblum, L. D. (1989). Hefting for a maximum distance throw: A smart perceptual mechanism. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 15, 507-528) found that skilled throwers could heft objects and select the weight in each size that they could throw to a maximum distance. Bingham et al. hypothesized that this affordance affects hefting and throwing in the same way so that hefting provides a window on throwing. Zhu and Bingham (Zhu, Q., & Bingham, G. P. (submitted for publication). Learning to perceive the affordance for long distance throwing: Smart mechanism or function learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance) found that unskilled throwers could not perceive this affordance, but they acquired the ability to perceive it as they acquired skill at throwing. The affordance property consists of a relation between object size and weight. We now investigated whether object size and weight come to affect throwing as it is learned and if so, how? Three groups of unskilled adults practiced throwing for a month, each with a different set of objects: constant size, constant weight, or constant density. Release angle and speed became more consistent as distances of throws improved, but only speeds exhibited mean changes. Object weight affected mean release speeds, following a power law, as found by Cross (Cross, R. (2004). Physics of overarm throwing. American Journal of Physics, 72, 305-312). Speeds decreased as weight increased. These findings showed that the affordance was not reflected directly in throwing performance and the hypothesis of Bingham et al. (1989) about how the affordance is perceived was not supported. An alternative account is now proposed., (2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)