Journal of Motor Control and Learning
Volume:2 Issue: 2, Spring 2020

Considering the role of bilateral transfer in the learning of motor skills, especially at the time of injury, attention to the factors that will enhance bilateral transfer, is important.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of feedback on bilateral transfer of force control task.

Thirty-six students were randomly assigned to three groups; feedback on successful trials, feedback on unsuccessful trials and self-control feedback groups. The feedback on successful trials group received KR for the two most effective trials in each block, the feedback on unsuccessful trials group, received KR for the two least effective trials in each block. And, self-control feedback group was provided with feedback whenever they requested only two trials. One day after the acquisition phase, participants performed a bilateral transfer test with another hand.

The results showed that all groups had significant progress, but there was no difference between groups in the acquisition phase (P≥0.05). The results of bilateral transfer showed that the group that received feedback on successful trials had the best performance (P=0.02) and There was no significant difference between the self-control feedback group and the feedback on unsuccessful trials group (P≥0.05).

As feedback on successful trials is motivational and leads to increased self-efficiency and higher activation of certain areas in the brain, it is likely that the resulting motivation positively influenced axonal guidance and led to the accelerated transfer of the cognitive and motor components via Corpus Callosum and, in this way, improved learning in the untrained hand.

The present research aims to consider the effects of a training on the static and dynamic balance and coordination of the educable mentally retarded children.

In this semi-experimental study, 24 individuals were selected from amongst educable mentally retarded boy students with the calendar age of 6-9 years old who did not have any special illness and motion restriction. The participants were randomly divided into two identical control (n: 12) and experiment (n: 12) groups. The selected exercise program was performed for 8 weeks including three 60-minute sessions for each week. The subscales of the balance and coordination of the Lincoln-Oseretsky test were used to evaluate the participants’ balance and coordination in the pretest and posttest.

The results showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups of control and experiment in pretest; whereas, a significant difference was observed in the static balance, dynamic balance and coordination between the pretest and posttest scores in the experiment group. The effect of Brailletonik training on balance and coordination was confirmed.

According to the findings, it seems that Brailletonik training can be a suitable intervention to improve the motor elements in retarded children.

Children with cerebral palsy due to limitations in movement are dependent on others in terms of mobility and self-care. These limitations affect their participation in daily life and its quality.

This study aimed to determine the impact of mental imagery training on the upper limb functions and motor skills in children with cerebral palsy.

Twenty children with cerebral palsy were selected from Tavana Rehabilitation Center in Tabriz city using a convenience sampling method and were randomly divided into two groups: mental imagery and control. The subjects of the mental imagery group were trained by mental imagery and subjects of the control group did not receive any training. Lincoln-Oseretsky development scale was used for collecting data from the subjects.   

The results of the covariance test indicated that mental imagery teaching can cause the improvement of upper limb functions and motor skills in children with cerebral palsy (p<0.05).

It can be concluded that mental imagery is considered as an effective strategy to improve motor skills in children with cerebral palsy.

There is few research on teaching people about mental rotation skills. The first step in this field is to reveal that, which educational programs help individuals improve their performance.

The purpose of this study is to compare the moderating effect of mental rotation ability on the amount of learning by mental exercise method in a motor skill (table tennis forehand).

For this purpose, a semi-experimental method and pre-test and post-test research design were used. First, all subjects were evaluated by mental rotation test and then, according to the test scores divided into 2 two groups of 15 individuals (a mental exercise group with high mental rotation ability); (A mental exercise group with low mental rotation ability). Duration of intervention in this research was 4 weeks, 3 sessions per week and each session were 20 minutes of mental exercise. After completion of exercises, Acquisition, retention (immediate and delayed) and transfer tests were taken from both groups. Mental rotation ability of the subjects was assessed using the MRT mental rotation test(Peters,1995). In addition, the level of their mental imagery was evaluated by a movement imagery questionnaire- 3 (Williams et al., 2012) and forehand table tennis skill were assessed by a hit accuracy test. For analysis of the data, repeated measure test was performed using SPSS software.

The results of the between-group comparison for high and low mental rotation variable showed that four weeks of mental exercise intervention caused a significant difference compared to the pre-test.

There is a difference between acquisition, retention, and transfer of forehand table tennis skill in individuals with high and low mental rotation in the mental exercise group.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of the combination of attention (external focus) and internal motivation (autonomy support and enhanced expectancies) on learning the skill of throwing darts.

For this purpose, 60 women participated in the study. our study included 4 groups: a) autonomy support - external focus (AS-EF); b) enhanced expectancies - external focus (EE-EF); C) enhanced expectancies - autonomy support (EE-AS); and d) enhanced expectancies - autonomy support - external focus (EE-AS-EF). Participants were asked to throw darts at a target with their non-dominant arm. In the EE conditions, they received (false) positive social-comparative feedback. In the AS conditions, they were allowed to throw 5 of 10 trials in each block with their dominant arm chosen by them. In the EF conditions, participants were asked to focus on the target. on the post-test after the end of the training period and retention and transfer test 24 hours after practice, the AS-EE-EF group had the highest accuracy scores and outperformed all other groups.

The results of the between-group comparison for throwing accuracy showed that the EE-AS-EF group was a significant difference compared to the other groups.

The findings provide evidence that enhanced expectancies, autonomy support, and an external focus can contribute in an additive style to optimize motor performance and learning.