Johan M. Koedijker

The education of attention in aiming at a far target: Training visual control in basketball jump shooting

Abstract We examined the effects of perceptual training on basketball jump shooting using a combination of single‐subject and group design. Six participants received eight weeks of visual control training in which they only had vision during the final ∼350 ms before ball release (the final period). Taking an ecological approach to perceptual learning, we expected that this would force participants to pick up relevant information until ball release, allowing for the use of the latest possible update of the relative target position. The training consisted of shooting from behind a screen and shooting while wearing liquid‐crystal goggles. Participants increased their final period duration. In addition, they increased their field goal and three‐point percentages in games, in contrast to four control participants from the same team. It is concluded that visual control training can change the temporal pattern of shooting and improve performance by enhancing the timing of information detection.

Attention and time constraints in perceptual-motor learning and performance: Instruction, analogy, and skill level

We sought to gain more insight into the effects of attention focus and time constraints on skill learning and performance in novices and experts by means of two complementary experiments using a table tennis paradigm. Experiment 1 showed that skill-focus conditions and slowed ball frequency disrupted the accuracy of experts, but dual-task conditions and speeded ball frequency did not. For novices, only speeded ball frequency disrupted accuracy. In Experiment 2, we extended these findings by instructing novices either explicitly or by analogy (implicit motor learning technique). Explicitly instructed novices were less accurate in skill-focused and dual-task conditions than in single-task conditions. Following analogy instruction novices were less accurate in the skill-focused condition, but maintained accuracy under dual-task conditions. Participants in both conditions retained accuracy when ball frequency was slowed, but lost accuracy when ball frequency was speeded, suggesting that not attention, but motor dexterity, was inadequate under high temporal constraints.

Interference Effects in Learning Similar Sequences of Discrete Movements

ABSTRACT Three experiments were conducted to examine proactive and retroactive interference effects in learning 2 similar sequences of discrete movements. In each experiment, the participants in the experimental group practiced 2 movement sequences on consecutive days (1 on each day, order counterbalanced across participants) followed by retention tests on the third day. In all, 2 out of 8 target locations differed between the 2 sequences. Experiment 1 established the nature of the interference effects in the present setup. Clear evidence was found for button-specific proactive and retroactive interference effects. Experiments 2 and 3 further probed the mechanisms underlying those effects, by varying the numbers of repetitions (50 or 250) of the 1st and 2nd sequence (Experiment 2) and the hand, dominant or nondominant, with which the sequences were practiced (Experiment 3). Experiment 2 showed that after a mere 50 repetitions, the representation of the movement structure was strong enough to evoke the effects observed in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 revealed that learning with the dominant hand did not result in more pronounced interference effects compared with learning with the nondominant hand. In combination, these results suggest that changes in the representation of the movement structure are primarily responsible for the observed interference effects.