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Control of Movement and Learning of Motor Skill
Published in Robert W. Proctor, Van Zandt Trisha, Human Factors in Simple and Complex Systems, 2018
Robert W. Proctor, Van Zandt Trisha
The idea of a motor program was first formalized by Keele (1968) and later developed and extended by Schmidt (1975). A motor program is an abstract plan for controlling a specific class of movements. To execute a particular movement within a class, parameters such as the muscles to be used, their order, and the force, duration, and timing of their contractions must be specified. In the rest of this section, we present certain implications of the motor program idea and describe the invariant characteristics of a motor program, its modular, hierarchical structure, and the role of feedback.
An exploration of motor learning concepts relevant to use of speech-generating devices
Published in Assistive Technology, 2019
Elena Dukhovny, Jennifer J. Thistle
Schmidt’s (1975) model of motor learning suggests that, as an individual continues to practice a motor pattern, he eventually forms a motor schema—an abstract generalized plan for a particular motor movement. This is the last stage of motor learning, also known as the autonomous stage (Fitts & Posner, 1967), where movement execution requires little or no conscious attention and does not rely on sensory feedback. “The concept of a motor program may be viewed as a set of muscle commands that are structured before a movement sequence begins, and that allows the entire sequence to be carried out uninfluenced by peripheral feedback” (Keele, 1968, p. 387). In SGD access, this is the stage when an individual stops attending to the graphics inside icons and begins to access icon sequences in relatively fluid movements that are not interrupted by visual search. At this point, SGD-supported communicators can devote their full attention to language formulation. This level of automaticity is rare in SGD use, but can be observed with some users who access their devices with no graphics available on the interface, similar to playing the piano.