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- Title
Representation of complex motor skills in long-term-memory.
- Authors
Schack, Thomas; Weigelt, Matthias
- Abstract
The present paper illustrates the closed link between mental representations and skilled athletic performance for a number of complex movements. In the first study, we investigated 33 athletes of different levels of expertise for the overhand tennis serve. A new experimental method, which can be used to uncover the long-term memory structures underlying the control of skilled performance (SDA-M; Schack, 2004), revealed that athletic expertise can be characterized by well-integrated networks of basic action concepts (BACs). In high-level experts (n = 11), these representational structures were organized in a distinctive hierarchical treelike structure, were remarkably similar between individuals, and were well matched with the functional and biomechanical demands of the task. In comparison, the action representations of low-level players (n = 11) and novices (n = 11) were organized less hierarchically, were more variable between persons, and were less well matched with the functional and biomechanical demands (Schack & Mechsner, 2006). In a second group of studies, we focused on 360° rotational movements (i.e., front loops) in windsurfing (n = 40) and in BMX bicycling (n = 4). For expert athletes, the representational structures underlying such front loop rotations were remarkably similar across individuals, whereas, for low-level athletes, these representations were more variable between persons. We propose that such distinct long-term memory structures provide the representational basis for the control of voluntary actions. From this perspective, implications are drawn for new forms of mental training in high performance sport.
- Subjects
MENTAL training; BIOMECHANICS; SERVING (Tennis); PHYSIOLOGICAL aspects of learning; MOTOR ability; ROTATIONAL motion
- Publication
Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 2007, Vol 29, pS124
- ISSN
0895-2779
- Publication type
Article