Chapter 1
How do the environments differ in an open skill vs closed skill?
Open Skills: Environment is variable and unpredictable during action
Closed Skills: Environment is stable and predictable
What are the 3 stages of information processing?
Stimulus identification stage
response selection stage
movement programming stage
Explain William James' definition of attention in your own words
William James described attention as the mind's ability to focus on one object or thought while
withdrawing from others. This concentration allows us to deal more effectively with the selected
object or thought.
What is the most prominent information within exteroception?
What is the meaning of “fn” on your computer keyboard?
Function
Define discrete skills and continuous skills.
Discrete skills: Usually have an easily defined beginning and end, often with a very brief duration of movement
Continuous skills have arbitrary beginning and end points, with the behavior flowing for minutes or hours
What is the response selection stage, and provide an example while driving.
The system’s problem is deciding what response to make, given the nature of the situation and environment. Process of determining what to do and how it should be done
In the driving example, the choice from available responses might be to go around another vehicle, to slow the car or to make an avoidance maneuver.
What is inattentional blindness and how might it explain "looked-but-failed-to-see" accidents?
Inattentional blindness is the failure to notice obvious features in our environment when we are
engaged in a goal-directed visual search.
This can lead to accidents because a driver may be
looking in the right direction but not consciously processing a critical object
Define Exteroception and Proprioception
Exteroception: Provides information to the processing system about the state of the environment in which one’s body exists. Inherent feedback. Information sources such as vision and audition.
Proprioception: Provides information about the state of the body itself. Inherent feedback. The CNS uses a complex combination of inputs from receptors for body awareness. Active or passive movement production can affect perception of movement trajectory.
What was the first vegetable ever to be grown in space?
Potato
What numerical value indicates the strongest association between scores?
1 or -1
Indicates the speed and effectiveness of decision-making.
RT interval is the period of time that begins when a stimulus is presented and ends when the movement response starts
Examples: braking rapidly in response to an unanticipated traffic event or starting to run when the gun goes off in sport.
Explain why hands-free cell phones are just as dangerous as handheld cell phones when driving
Research suggests the problem is not the physical act of holding a phone, but the attentional
demands of the conversation itself. Both hands-free and handheld conversations can exceed the
driver's attentional capacity, impairing performance.
Vestibular apparatus
Joint receptors
Muscle spindles
Golgi tendon organs
Cutaneous receptors
Weighing up to 2,000 pounds, this is the largest mammal in North America.
Bison
This determination of accuracy is interpreted as an overall tendency to underthrow or overthrow the target.
Constant Error
When does your reaction time start and stop when you see brake car lights ahead of you?
Start: When you see brake lights on the car ahead
Stop: Initiate release from accelerator
What is the psychological refractory period (PRP)?
The psychological refractory period (PRP) is the delay in responding to the second of two stimuli
presented closely together in time.
This delay occurs because the motor system is already
processing the first stimulus, creating a bottleneck.
What does the "comparator" do?
Compares anticatped feedback with the actual feedback, finally outputting an error signal.
What is the Grinch’s dog’s name?
Max
List the three elements that are critical to almost any skill.
1. Perceiving the relevant environmental features
2. Deciding what, where and when to do it to achieve the goal
3. Producing organized muscular activity to generate movements that achieve the goal
How do we keep from losing information within this place?
Short term memory
Rehearsal
Explain how the Inverted-U Principle relates to performance.
Arousal is the level of excitement produced under stress.
The inverted-U principle represents a view of the relationship between arousal and performance
Increasing the arousal level generally enhances performance, but only to a point
Explain how optical flow contributes to our perception of motion and our ability to interact with our
environment.
Optical flow refers to the changing patterns of light rays as they "flow" over the retina during
movement. It provides critical information about our motion through the environment, the
movement of objects relative to us, and the time-to-contact with approaching objects, enabling us
to navigate and interact effectively
What is Hermione’s Patronus?
Otter