Cognition Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Cognition, including details on psychology, neuroscience, memory, brain theory.

Representation of motor skills in human long-term memory.

Schack T, Mechsner F

Department of Psychology, German Sports University, Carl-Diem-Weg 6, D-50933 Cologne, Germany.

This study uses the example of the tennis serve to investigate the nature and role of long-term memory in skilled athletic performance. Information processing linked with complex movements has always been notoriously difficult to investigate. However, a new experimental method revealed that athletic expertise was characterized by well-integrated networks of so-called basic action concepts (BACs) that each corresponded to functionally meaningful submovements. In high-level experts, these representational frameworks were organized in a distinctive hierarchical tree-like structure, were remarkably similar between individuals and were well matched with the functional and biomechanical demands of the task. In comparison, action representations in low-level players and nonplayers were organized less hierarchically, were more variable between persons and were less well matched with functional and biomechanical demands. It is concluded that, in concert with situational goals and constraints, movement representations of this kind in long-term memory might provide the basis for action control in skilled voluntary movements in the form of suitably organized perceptual-cognitive reference structures.

Published 5 December 2005 in Neurosci Lett, 391(3): 77-81.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Cognition Research Today. All Rights Reserved.