Contextual dependencies during perceptual motor skill activities : a re-evaluation of Wright and Shea (1991) /
The present study was designed to extend and re-evaluate the work of Wright and Shea (I 99 1) in the area of contextual dependencies during perceptual motor skill activities. Contextual dependencies elicited in their 1991 work prompted Wright and Shea to suggest a connection between task difficulty...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[Place of publication not identified] :
[publisher not identified] ;
1996.
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=739363241&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=2945&RQT=309&VName=PQD |
| Summary: | The present study was designed to extend and re-evaluate the work of Wright and Shea (I 99 1) in the area of contextual dependencies during perceptual motor skill activities. Contextual dependencies elicited in their 1991 work prompted Wright and Shea to suggest a connection between task difficulty and contextual dependency. Task difficulty was defined as the number of keypresses in the typing sequences.Subsequent research by the same authors has demonstrated that task difficulty is not directly related to the number of keypresses in the sequence to be learned. This study examined the different time constraints which were inadvertently placed upon subjects in the original study by maintaining the same time constraints regardless of whether or not the task consisted of 3 or 4-keypresses. This forced the subjects in the 4-keypress tasks to respond under greater time constraints (per keypress) than the 3-keypress group. By manipulating the amount of time for viewing and responding to the stimuli, this study was able to duplicate the context of the original study using only 3-keypressing tasks. This study found, as did the original study, a relationship between task difficulty and contextual dependency. However, this study was able to narrow the definition of task difficulty to the time constraints placed upon subjects as a condition of stimulus input. Moreover, the dependency appeared to be related to more extensive movement time on the part of the subjects who were originally trained with short viewing times. This might suggest an on-line verification process is being used by these subjects in order to resolve the presented mismatch between the intentional and incidental stimuli. While a dependency on the reinstatement of incidental stimuli was exhibited in the present study, the magnitude of this effect as a function of task difficulty was considerably less than that demonstrated by Wright and Shea.This suggests that factor(s) other than viewing and execution time must have contributed to the difficulty, and thus the emergent dependency, of performing and acquiring the 4-key responses used by Wright and Shea. |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | Vita. "Major Subject: Kinesiology". |
| Physical Description: | vii, 93 leaves : illustrations ; 28 cm. Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilms Inc. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references: pages 48-52. |