THEORIES OF MOTOR LEARNING

What is Motor Learning?

We define the field of motor learning as the study of the
acquisition and/or modification of movement. While motor
control focuses on understanding the control of movement
already acquired, motor learning focuses on understanding
the acquisition and/or modification of movement.

The field of motor learning has traditionally referred to the

study of the acquisition or modification of movement in
normal subjects. In contrast, recovery of function has
referred to the reacquisition of movement skills lost through
injury.
NATURE OF MOTOR LEARNING
Early Definitions of Motor Learning:
Learning has been described as the process of acquiring knowledge
about the world;
motor learning has been described as a set of processes associated
with practice or experience leading to relatively permanent changes
in the capability for producing skilled action.
This definition of motor learning reflects four concepts:

(a)learning is a process of acquiring the capability for skilled action;

(b) learning results from experience or practice;
(c) learning cannot be measured directly— instead, it is inferred
from behavior; and
(d) learning produces relatively permanent changes in behavior;
thus, short-term alterations are not thought of as learning
(Schmidt & Lee, 2005)
Broadening the Definition of Motor Learning:
Motor learning involves more than motor processes;
It involves learning new strategies for sensing as well as moving.
Thus, motor learning, like motor control, emerges from a complex of
perception/cognition/action processes. Previous views of motor
learning have focused primarily on changes in the individual.

But the process of motor learning can be described as the search for
a task solution that emerges from an interaction of the individual
with the task and the environment. Task solutions are new strategies
for perceiving and acting (Newell, 1991).
Similarly, the recovery of function involves the search for new
solutions in relationship to specifi c tasks and environments given
the new constraints imposed on the individual by neural pathology.
Thus, one cannot study motor learning or recovery of function
outside the context of how individuals are solving functional tasks in
specific environments.
Relating Performance and Learning :
Traditionally, the study of motor learning has focused solely on
motor outcomes. Earlier views of motor learning did not always
distinguish it from performance (Schmidt & Lee, 2005).

Changes in performance that resulted from practice were usually

thought to reflect changes in learning. However, this view failed
to consider that certain practice effects improved performance
initially but were not necessarily retained, which is a condition of
learning.

This led to the notion that learning could not be evaluated

during practice, but rather during specific retention or transfer
tests. Thus, learning, defined as a relatively permanent change,
has been distinguished from performance, defined as a
temporary change in motor behavior seen during practice
sessions.
Forms of Learning :
Basic Forms of Long-Term Memory:
Nondeclarative (Implicit) and Declarative (Explicit):
Nonassociative Forms of Learning
Habituation and sensitization are two very simple forms of
nonassociative learning.

Habituation is a decrease in responsiveness that occurs as a result of

repeated exposure to a nonpainful stimulus (Kandel et al., 2000). For
example, habituation exercises are used to treat dizziness in patients
with certain types of vestibular dysfunction.

Sensitization is an increased responsiveness following a threatening or

noxious stimulus (Kandel et al., 2000).
For example, increasing a patient’s awareness of stimuli indicating
likelihood for impending falls might be an important aspect of balance
retraining
Associative Forms of Learning:
It is through associative learning that a person learns to
predict relationships, either relationships of one stimulus to
another (classical conditioning) or the relationship of one’s
behavior to a consequence (operant conditioning).
Conditioned stimulus (CS): is usually something that initially
produces no response (like a bell).
Unconditioned stimulus (UCS), always produces a response
which could be food,
Classical Conditioning:
Classical conditioning consists of learning to pair two stimuli. During
classical conditioning an initially weak stimulus (the conditioned
stimulus) becomes highly effective in producing a response when it
becomes associated with another, stronger, stimulus (the
unconditioned stimulus)

Operant Conditioning:
Operant, or instrumental, conditioning is a second type of
associative learning (Kandel et al., 2000).
It is basically trial-and- error learning. During operant
conditioning we learn to associate a certain response, from
among many that we have made, with a consequence.
Procedural Learning :
Refers to learning tasks that can be performed
automatically without attention or conscious thought, like a
habit. Procedural learning develops slowly through
repetition of an act over many trials, and it is expressed
through improved performance of the task that was
practiced. Like other forms of implicit learning, procedural
learning does not require awareness, attention, or other
higher cognitive processes.
Declarative or Explicit Learning

it involves the ability to remember factual knowledge (often related

to objects, places, or events).

Declarative or explicit learning also involves four different types of

processing, including encoding, consolidation, storage, and retrieval.

Encoding involves the circuitry just described and requires attention.

The extent of the encoding is determined by the level of motivation,

the extent of attention to the information, and the ability to associate

it meaningfully with information that is already in memory.

Consolidation includes the process of making the information stable for long-

term memory storage, and involves structural changes in neurons.

Storage involves the long-term retention of memories and has a vast capacity

compared to the limited capacity of short-term or working memory.

Retrieval involves the recall of information from different long-term storage

sites. It cannot easily be used with patients who have cognitive and/or

language deficits that impair their ability to recall and express knowledge.
 THEORIES OF MOTOR LEARNING
Schmidt’s Schema Theory
By (Adams, 1971; Ivry, 1997)
This theory hypothesized that, in motor
learning, sensory feedback from the ongoing
movement is compared within the nervous
system with the stored memory of the
intended movement .
Based on the concept of closed-loop processes in
motor control.
Closed-loop process: sensory feedback is used for
the ongoing production of skilled movement
In the closed-loop two types of memory were important .
the memory trace was used in the selection and initiation of the
movement.
Perceptual trace, was then built up over a period of practice and
became the internal reference of correctness.
After movement is initiated by the memory trace, the perceptual
trace takes over to carry out the movement and detect error.

The closed-loop theory of motor learning had been criticized for

several reasons, including the fact that it could not explain either
the accurate performance of novel movements or of open-loop
movements, made in the absence of sensory feedback
 Schema Theory (Schmidt, 1975).

Open-loop control processes (generalized motor program concept)

According to this theory, learning consists of the ongoing process of
updating the recognition and recall schemas with each movement
that is made.
Schema: abstract representation stored in memory following multiple
presentations of a class of objects.
The recall schema is used to select a specific response.
The recognition schema is used to evaluate.

Motor programs do not contain the specifics of movements, but

instead contain generalized rules for a specific class of movements.
Learning a new motor program, the individual learns a generalized set
of rules that can be applied to a variety of contexts.
The schema theory of motor learning is equivalent to the motor
programming theory of motor control.
 Clinical Implications
Eg : Reaching activity: practiced under many
different conditions
(recall schema, recognition schema)
Practicing reaching under many different conditions
is essential then to forming accurate recall and
recognition schemas.
 Limitations
1)Is schema theory supported by research?

2)Is variable forms of practice will produce the most

effective schema or motor program.?

3)How a person makes his or her first movement

before any schema exists? (lacks specificity)

4) What is account for the immediate acquisition of

new types of coordination?
 Ecological Theory
By (Newell, 1991).
Based on the concept of search strategies.
Newell suggests that motor learning is a process that
increases the coordination between perception and action
in a way that is consistent with the task and environmental
constraints.

Search for optimal strategies to solve the task, given the task
constraints.
Search for optimal strategies involves:
Appropriate motor response
Appropriate perceptual cues.
Thus, both perception and action systems are incorporated
or mapped into an optimal task solution
One central prediction of this theory is
that the transfer of motor skills will,

Dependent on the similarity between the

two tasks of the optimal perceptual/motor
strategies.

and relatively independent of the muscles

used or the objects manipulated in the
task.
 Clinical Implications
Learning to discriminate relevant from
irrelevant perceptual cues.

When faced with a novel variation of the

task, the patient must actively explore the
perceptual cues to find the information
necessary to solve the task problem
optimally.
 Limitations
No systematic studies support.
One of its major limitations is that it has
yet to be applied to specific examples of
motor skill acquisition in any systematic
way.
Theories Related
to Stages of
Learning Motor
Skills
 Fitts and Posner Three-Stage Model (1967)

They suggest that there are three main phases involved in

skill learning.
1) cognitive stage of learning
The learner is concerned with understanding the nature of the task,
developing strategies that could be used to carry out the task, and
determining how the task should be evaluated. require a high degree
of cognitive activity such as attention.
2) associative stage
selection of the best strategy for the task and begins to
refine the skill.
3) autonomous stage
automaticity of the skill and the low degree of attention
required for its performance
 Clinical Implications
1) In what stage the patient is?
2) How to progress to advance stage?
Systems Three-Stage Model:
by Bernstein (1967)
This theory suggests that when a novice or an infant is first
learning a new skill, the degrees of freedom of the body are
constrained as they perform the task, in order to make the
task easier to perform.
Novice stage, in which the learner simplifies the
movement in order to reduce the degrees of
freedom
Advanced stage, the performer begins to release
additional degrees of freedom,
Expert stage, the individual now has released all the
degrees of freedom necessary to perform the task in
the most efficient and coordinated way
 Clinical Implications.
Coactivation of muscles during the early
stages of acquiring a motor skill and as an
ongoing strategy in patients who are unable
to learn to control a limb dynamically.

Gradual release of degrees of freedom.

 Limitations.
Little research has been focused on the
autonomous or expert stage of learning,

Take months or years to bring many subjects to this

skill level on a laboratory task.
 Gentile’s Two-Stage Model
By Gentile (1972, 1987)
Two-stage theory describes the goal of the learner in each stage.
First stage
The goal of the learner is to develop an understanding of the task
dynamics.
This includes understanding the goal of the task,
Developing movement strategies appropriate to achieving the goal,
Understanding the environmental features critical to the organization
of the movement.

An important feature of this stage of motor learning is learning to

distinguish relevant, or regulatory, features of the environment from
those that are nonregulatory.
Second stage:
called the “fixation/diversification stage,” the goal of the
learner is to refine the movement.
includes both
1) Developing the capability of adapting the movement to
changing task and environmental demands
2) Performing the task consistently and efficiently.
The terms fixation and diversification refer to the distinct
requirements of open versus closed skills.
Closed skills: have minimal environmental variation, and
thus require a consistent movement pattern with minimal
variation.
Open skills: are characterized by changing environmental
conditions and therefore require movement diversification.