SEHS Topic 5.2 – Skill in Sport:
Information Processing
Human Central Nervous System
Describe a simple model of information
processing
• Input -> Decision Making -> Output
• We take info from our surroundings, use it to
make a decision and then produce a response
• Input -> Decision Making -> Output
Describe Welford’s model of information
processing
Welford's model suggests that we:
• take in information through our senses and temporarily
store all of these inputs prior to sorting them out
• the inputs that are seen as relevant to the decision are
then stored in the short-term memory
• a decision is made by comparing the information in the
short-term memory with previous experiences stored
in the long-term memory
• with reference to the long term memory for the
required action the decision is carried out
• the action and the results are stored for future
reference
• the whole process then begins again
Cont’d
Outline the components associated with
sensory input
• Structures in your body that are involved with
sensory input include:
• Proprioreceptors – Proprioception means "sense of
self". In the limbs, the proprioceptors are sensors
that provide information about joint angle, muscle
length, and muscle tension, which is integrated to
give information about the position of the limb in
space.
Cont’d
• Interoceptors - Interoceptors or visceroceptors
provide information about the events in the viscera,
e.g., receptors sensing blood pressure, plasma
osmolarity, blood glucose concentration or the
degree of stretching of the urinary bladder.
Cont’d
• Exteroceptors provide information about the
external environment. Ex. touch, pressure,
temperature, light, sound, taste, smell etc.
Old School Exteroreceptors lab
•
•
•
•
Smell
Taste
Touch (2 pt threshhold)
Sight (peripheral; blind spot)
Explain the signal-detection process
• Sometimes referred to as the detectioncomparison-recognition process (DCR)
• See excerpt from Dr. Heeger’s lecture on the
subject
• I begin here with medical scenario. Imagine that a
radiologist is examining a CT scan, looking for evidence
of a tumor. Interpreting CT images is hard and it takes a
lot of training. Because the task is so hard, there is
always some uncertainty as to what is there or not.
Either there is a tumor (signal present) or there is not
(signal absent). Either the doctor sees a tumor (they
respond "yes'') or does not (they respond "no''). There
are four possible outcomes: hit (tumor present and
doctor says "yes''), miss (tumor present and doctor
says "no''), false alarm (tumor absent and doctor says
"yes"), and correct rejection (tumor absent and doctor
says "no"). Hits and correct rejections are good. False
alarms and misses are bad.
• There are two main components to the decision-making
process: information acquisition and criterion.
• Information acquisition: First, there is information in the CT
scan. For example, healthy lungs have a characteristic shape.
The presence of a tumor might distort that shape. Tumors
may have different image characteristics: brighter or darker,
different texture, etc. With proper training a doctor learns
what kinds of things to look for, so with more
practice/training they will be able to acquire more (and more
reliable) information. Running another test (e.g., MRI) can
also be used to acquire more information. Regardless,
acquiring more information is good. The effect of information
is to increase the likelihood of getting either a hit or a correct
rejection, while reducing the likelihood of an outcome in the
two error boxes.
• Criterion: The second component of the decision process is
quite different. For, in addition to relying on
technology/testing to provide information, the medical
profession allows doctors to use their own judgment.
Different doctors may feel that the different types of errors
are not equal. For example, some doctors may feel that
missing an opportunity for early diagnosis may mean the
difference between life and death. A false alarm, on the other
hand, may result only in a routine biopsy operation. They may
choose to err toward "yes" (tumor present) decisions. Other
doctors, however, may feel that unnecessary surgeries (even
routine ones) are very bad (expensive, stress, etc.). They may
chose to be more conservative and say "no" (no turmor)
more often. They will miss more tumors, but they will be
doing their part to reduce unnecessary surgeries. And they
may feel that a tumor, if there really is one, will be picked up
at the next check-up. These arguments are not about
information. Two doctors, with equally good training, looking
at the same CT scan, will have the same information. But they
may have a different bias/criterion.
• Internal Response and Internal Noise
• Detecting a tumor is hard and there will always be
some amount of uncertainty. There are two kinds
of noise factors that contribute to the uncertainty:
internal noise and external noise.
• External noise: There are many possible sources of
external noise. There can be noise factors that are
part of the photographic process, a smudge, or a
bad spot on the film. Or something in the person's
lung that is fine but just looks a bit like a tumor. All
of these are to be examples of external noise.
While the doctor makes every effort possible to
reduce the external noise, there is little or nothing
that they can do to reduce internal noise.
Internal noise: Internal noise refers to the fact that neural
responses are noisy. To make this example really concrete,
let's suppose that our doctor has a set of tumor detector
neurons and that they monitor the response of one of
these neurons to determine the likelihood that there is a
tumor in the image (if we could find these neurons then
perhaps we could publish and article entitled ``What the
radiologist's eye tells the radiologist's brain''). These
hypothetical tumor detectors will give noisy and variable
responses. After one glance at a scan of a healthy lung,
our hypothetical tumor detectors might fire 10 spikes per
second. After a different glance at the same scan and under
the same conditions, these neurons might fire 40 spikes per
• Internal response: Now I do not really believe that there are
tumor detector neurons in a radiologist's brain. But there is
some internal state, reflected by neural activity somewhere
in the brain, that determines the doctor's impression about
whether or not a tumor is present. This is a fundamental
issue; the state of your mind is reflected by neural activity
somewhere in your brain. This neural activity might be
concentrated in just a few neurons or it might be distributed
across a large number of neurons. Since we do not know
much about where/when this neural activity is, let's simply
refer to it as the doctor's internal response.
• This internal response is inherently noisy. Even when there is
no tumor present (no-signal trials) there will be some
internal response (sometimes more, sometimes less) in the
doctor's sensory system.
Use the space below to describe how Dr.
Heeger’s lecture excerpt relates to SEHS
Distinguish between the characteristics of
short-term sensory store, short-term
memory, and long-term memory
• Differ in:
– Functionality
– Capacity
– Content
– Strength
Sensory Information Storage (SIS)
•
•
•
•
•
Tenths of a second
Visual Trace: 0.25 seconds
Movies 16 fps = continuous
Not possible to extend
Complete image
Short-term Memory (STR)
• Seconds to minutes
• Only interpretation is retained
• Limited capacity
– 5-6 items
• Direct access
• Permanent storage vs. rehearsal
Long-term Memory (LTR)
• No storage limitation
• Need process and retrieval
• Key issues
– Memory organization
– Methods of storing and retrieving (will cover in
additional slides)
Memory Retrieval
• Interconnected network
• Retrievability
• Frequent thoughts strengthen neural
pathways
Discuss the relationship between
selective attention and memory
• Can’t pay attention to everything, be it in sport or
in aspect of life
• Single-channel theory / “Cocktail party effect”
• What do we pay attention to? How do we
overcome this?
• Selective attention – focus on relevant in a sea of
irrelevance
Broadbent’s filter model of selective
attention
Compare different methods of
memory improvement
• According to Miller we have a capacity of 7+/-2
bits of information. How do we remember more?
• Emotion
• Chunking (example)
• Visualization (ex. Memory Pegboard – the more
outlandish the better)
Classwork/Homework
• Internet research: Outline how 2 of the following
can be used to help with retention and/or retrieval
for improving learning, skill acquisition practice or
teaching/coaching skills.
• 1. using key words
• 2. brevity
• 3. clarity
• 4. organization
• 5. Association
• 6. practice
Define Response Time……
• Response time- is the time from the introduction of
a stimulus to the completion of the action required
to deal with the situation(McMorris 2004)
• Response time = reaction time + movement time
– Where reaction time is the time that elapses from the
sudden onset of a stimulus to the beginning of an overt
response and
– Movement time is the time it takes to carry out the
motor aspects of the performance
….and outline the factors that determine
response time, including ……..
• Movement time is effected by fitness (specifically
speed and power of limb movement) and can be
improved with training
• Response time - > increased throughout childhood
and adolescence….but get slower as we age and is
not easy to improve:
– Stimulus transmission
– Recognition
– Nerve transmission time
Detection
Decision to respond
Hick‘s Law
• Hick (1952) found that as you double the
number of stimulus-response couplings there
is a linear increase in response time
Psychological refractory period
• What is PRP (psychological refractory period)?
How does it helps explain deception in sports?
• Top 10 deception plays
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkLcFoTjCs0
• So what’s going on here?
Describe a motor programme (mp)
• Is defined as a set of movements (muscle
commands) stored as a whole in the memory
regardless of whether feedback is used in their
execution
• Exs. include just about any skill you can think of
• When a specific action is required, the memory
process retrieves the stored programme and
transmits the motor commands via nerve impulses
to the relevant muscles allowing movement to
occur. This is known as ‘executive motor
programme.
• When needed this programme is recalled. If this
skill is learned then the reaction time to produce
the skill is very short.
• When the performer becomes more skilled then the
motor programme is taken away and superseded by
a new programme. Then this new one will become
learned.
Subroutine Programmes
• When a specific action is required, the memory
process retrieves the stored programme and
transmits the motor commands via nerve impulses
to the relevant muscles allowing movement to
occur. This is known as ‘executive motor
programme.
• When needed this programme is recalled. If this
skill is learned then the reaction time to produce
the skill is very short.
• When the performer becomes more skilled then
the motor programme is taken away and supersede
by a new programme. Then this new one will
become learned.
Compare motor programmes from both
open and closed loop perspectives
• Open loops – hitting (or attempting to hit) a
100mph fastball or a 140mph tennis serve
• (no alteration of movement possible – since the
stimuli is too fast for feedback/adjustments to
occur)
• Closed loops – not all movements take place so
quickly – many can be altered during their
execution
• (slower pitch reaction, slower serves, deflected or
redirected balls)
How we alter Mps using a closed loop
• Jack Adams (1971)
• A learned skill = a perceptual trace (pt; a memory
imprint for a “feel” of the successful movements) in
its wake
• We use this perceptual trace/ this “feel” to
compare with the ongoing movement
• This comparison allows us to adjust and correct any
inappropriate actions
• While the pt allows for corrections, Adams argues
that the actual selection and initiation of movement
is a result of something he called memory trace
(mt)
Outline the role of feedback in
information processing models
• Feedback – in this context it describes
information resulting from an action or
response
– Intrinsic feedback – available to a
performer/athlete w/o outside help
– Extrinsic feedback – is provided by someone
(coach/teacher) or something else (stopwatch,
game clock, tape measure)
Feedback and information processing
models continued
• Know the difference between:
– Knowledge of results (KR) vs. Knowledge of
Performance (KP)
– -Most obvious form of KR is visual (self recoginized
or w/assistance)
Cont’d
• The most obvious form of KP is the “feel” of the
movement (i.e recognition of the sensory
consequences)
– It can be concurrent
Or
– Terminal feedback via a coach or video review
**Feedback can also be positive or negative
Outline the role of feedback with the learning process
http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/considerations-forgiving-feedback-on-skill-performance
Considerations for giving feedback on skill performance
Considerations for giving feedback on skill performance