Conscious Control Is Associated With Freezing of Mechanical Degrees of Freedom During Motor Learning

This study investigated whether conscious control is associated with freezing of mechanical degrees of freedom during motor learning. Participants practiced a throwing task using either error-strewn or error-reduced practice protocols, which encourage high or low levels of conscious control, respectively. After 24 hr, participants engaged in a series of delayed retention and transfer tests. Furthermore, propensity for conscious control was assessed using participants' ratings and freezing was gauged through movement variability of the throwing arm. Performance was defined by mean radial error. In the error-strewn group, propensity for conscious control was positively associated with both freezing and performance. In the error-reduced group, propensity for conscious control was negatively associated with performance, but not with freezing. These results suggest that conscious control is associated with freezing of mechanical degrees of freedom during motor learning.     

Presurgical MMPI-2 Cluster Profiles Predict 1-Year Low-Back Surgery Outcomes

The primary purpose of this study was to examine whether empirically derived cluster profiles based on scores from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) predicted outcomes of surgery at 1 year for patients with low-back pain. On the basis of hierarchical cluster analysis of presurgery MMPI-2 scores for 60 patients, three interpretable and significant subgroups were formed. These consisted of a pathological/neurotic type, a double V-code type, and a normal type. The patents in the normal type were significantly more likely to report beneficial outcomes of surgery in terms of disability and pain than those in the other 2 types. These findings extend previous research and suggest (1) low-back surgery candidates are heterogeneous in their psychological profiles, and (2) MMPI-2 profiles are predictive of low-back surgery outcome. Future research should focus on identifying physiological substrates for these distinct profiles and investigating the effectiveness of presurgical psychological interventions based on profile type.     

Writing for publication group: professional development situated in the interstices of academia and performativity

This article features nine ‘narratives of experience’ illustrative of academics engaged in an alternative Professional Development (PD) activity, referred to as Writing for Publication, in a regional Australian university. Each narrative adopts a critical stance to academic practice situated in what Ball defines as a ‘culture of performativity’ perpetuated by a ‘global neoliberal environment’. Contrary to professional development built primarily around sporadic content-provision and credential-based activities, Writing for Publication represents an alternative approach to professional development, a loose-coupling model, that gives validation to academics engaged in navigating dominant neoliberal discourses driving higher education filtered through the interstices or sites for identity-creation, agency formation and emerging communities of practice.     

Target-directed visual attention is a prerequisite for action-specific perception

Witt et al. (2008) have recently shown that golfers who putt with more success perceive the hole to be bigger than golfers who putt with less success. In three experiments, we systematically examined whether this phenomenon, labelled action-specific perception, depends on directing visual attention towards the action target. In Experiment 1 we replicated previously reported action-specific effects on perception in golf putting. In 3 and 4 we directly assessed whether action-specific effects on perception in golf putting are dependent on focusing visual attention on the target. To this end, the participants performed the putting task while visual attention towards the target was either completely withheld (Experiment 2) or divided over the target and other task-relevant objects (Experiment 3). No action-specific effects were found when visual attention towards the action target was occluded or partially diverted from the target. Together, our results provide evidence to suggest that focusing visual attention on the target while performing the action is a prerequisite for the emergence of action-specific perception.     

The human Müller-Lyer illusion in goalkeeping

We examined whether a goalkeeper can influence a penalty-taker's actions by assuming postures that mimic Müller-Lyer configurations. The results of two studies indicate that (i) goalkeeper posture affects the perception of the goalkeeper's height in a manner consistent with the Müller-Lyer illusion; (ii) this influences penalty-taking accuracy; and (iii) a posture which resembles a wing-out Müller-Lyer configuration results in wider and lower throws.     

Stable implicit motor processes despite aerobic locomotor fatigue

Implicit processes almost certainly preceded explicit processes in our evolutionary history, so they are likely to be more resistant to disruption according to the principles of evolutionary biology [Reber, A. S. (1992). The cognitive unconscious: An evolutionary perspective. Consciousness and Cognition, 1, 93-133.]. Previous work (e.g., [Masters, R. S. W. (1992). Knowledge, (k)nerves and know-how: The role of explicit versus implicit knowledge in the breakdown of a complex motor skill under pressure. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 343-358.]) has shown that implicitly learned motor skills remain stable under psychological pressure and concurrent cognitive demands, and recently [Poolton, J. M., Masters, R. S. W., & Maxwell, J. P. (2007). Passing thoughts on the evolutionary stability of implicit motor behaviour: Performance retention under physiological fatigue. Consciousness and Cognition, 16(2), 456-468.] showed that they also remain stable under conditions of anaerobic fatigue that would have significantly challenged the survival skills of our ancestors. Here we examine the stability of an implicitly learned motor skill under fatigue conditions that primarily tax a different physiological system (the aerobic system), but which have equally strong evolutionary connotations. Participants acquired a throwing task by means of an errorless (implicit) learning method or an errorful (explicit) method. Motor performance in the errorless condition, but not the errorful condition, remained stable following an exhaustive VO2 max. running test. Our findings replicate and extend the work of Poolton et al., providing further support for Reber's evolutionary distinction between implicit and explicit processes.     

Passing thoughts on the evolutionary stability of implicit motor behaviour: performance retention under physiological fatigue

Heuristics of evolutionary biology (e.g., survival of the fittest) dictate that phylogenetically older processes are inherently more stable and resilient to disruption than younger processes. On the grounds that non-declarative behaviour emerged long before declarative behaviour, Reber (1992) argues that implicit (non-declarative) learning is supported by neural processes that are evolutionarily older than those supporting explicit learning. Reber suggested that implicit learning thus leads to performance that is more robust than explicit learning. Applying this evolutionary framework to motor performance, we examined whether implicit motor learning, relative to explicit motor learning, conferred motor output that was resilient to physiological fatigue and durable over time. In Part One of the study a fatigued state was induced by a double Wingate Anaerobic test protocol. Fatigue had no affect on performance of participants in the implicit condition; whereas, performance of participants in the explicit condition deteriorated significantly. In Part Two of the study a convenience sample of participants was recalled following a one-year hiatus. In both the implicit and the explicit condition retention of performance was seen and, contrary to the findings in Part One, so was resilience to fatigue. The resilient performance in the explicit condition after one year may have resulted from forgetting (the decay of declarative knowledge) or from consolidation of declarative knowledge as implicit memories. In either case, implicit processes were left to more effectively support motor performance.     

Using the MMPI-2 to Predict Symptom Reduction During Psychotherapy in a Sample of Community Outpatients

In the present study, potential MMPI-2 predictors of psychotherapy outcome were examined in a community clinical sample of 51 patients seeking treatment at a university training clinic. Results indicated that particular MMPI-2 scales (L, F, Pd, Pa, Sc, Trt) were the most predictive of initial levels of patient distress, whereas three other clinical scales (Hs, D, Hy) were significantly associated with actual symptom reduction over time. The clinical implications of these data include the use of the MMPI-2 in clinical practice as a means to frame the provision of direct feedback to patients regarding the likelihood of treatment response, which in turn, might actually have therapeutic benefits. The limitations of the study are reviewed and suggestions for future research are offered, including the potential use of widely known and utilized instruments in helping to predict response to psychotherapy.     

Marginally perceptible outcome feedback, motor learning and implicit processes

Participants struck 500 golf balls to a concealed target. Outcome feedback was presented at the subjective or objective threshold of awareness of each participant or at a supraliminal threshold. Participants who received fully perceptible (supraliminal) feedback learned to strike the ball onto the target, as did participants who received feedback that was only marginally perceptible (subjective threshold). Participants who received feedback that was not perceptible (objective threshold) showed no learning. Upon transfer to a condition in which the target was unconcealed, performance increased in both the subjective and the objective threshold condition, but decreased in the supraliminal condition. In all three conditions, participants reported minimal declarative knowledge of their movements, suggesting that deliberate hypothesis testing about how best to move in order to perform the motor task successfully was disrupted by the impoverished disposition of the visual outcome feedback. It was concluded that sub-optimally perceptible visual feedback evokes implicit processes.     

Children's emotions and memory for affective narrative content

The present study was an investigation of effects of emotional states on children's learning and memory for a short narrative. Happy, sad, or neutral moods were induced in 72 second-grade boys and girls by a standard affect induction procedure. This mood induction was accomplished either before or after they heard a story in which two protagonists encountered a variety of experiences having an affective character. For half of the subjects, the initial story event had a positive affective valence, and for half it was negative. Children's memory for events in the narrative was assessed immediately afterward, using measures offo free recall, cued recall, and recognition. Children recalled more affective content than neutral content, and boys recalled more than girls. Valence of the initial story item and sex of subject influenced the relationship between mood state and memory for story events. Under some conditions, positive moods reduced recognition accuracy for positive material. The findings suggest that simple patterns of mood-influenced memory found in previous studies are modified by factors such as characteristics of the learner and the organization of the material to be learned. The relationship between mood and memory thus appears to be more complex than previously recognized.This experiment was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BNS-8308147) to John C. Masters. The authors wish to thank Bill Harris, Suzanne Chabaud, and Saneya Hassan for assistance in data collection and coding.