Over-thinking and motor skills: When teachers can't do
November 11, 2008(PhysOrg.com) -- Hoping to sink a perfect putt? Don't talk about it, just do it. Psychology research shows over-thinking may be one reason those who teach often can't do the task as well as they'd like.
Skilled athletes often maintain that thinking too much about executing a skill disrupts their performance, so University of Michigan psychology researcher Kristin Flegal and Michael Anderson, a psychology professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, tested that intuition.
Researchers asked 80 golfers to learn a unique putt, then to spend several minutes either verbally describing what they'd learned or working on an unrelated task for the same amount of time. Afterwards, they were asked to perform the putt again. The research is detailed in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
After spending only several minutes describing their putting, higher-skilled golfers needed twice as many attempts to sink their putts, compared to equally experienced golfers who did not put their memories into words. In contrast, lower skilled golfers were, if anything, helped by several minutes of verbalizing about what they learned.
"It's so elementary that if you practice something you should get better at it but we found when people had to explain what they just did, they actually got worse," Flegal said. "The problem is a mismatch between the kind of memories that we can verbalize and the more non-verbal kind of memories for skills.''
Research being conducted by scientists in Italy measuring gymnastics skills demonstrates similar findings, she said.
Flegal and Anderson believe the performance loss is related to an effect called verbal overshadowing, where trying to describe a difficult-to-verbalize experience (such as the appearance of a face, or the taste of a wine, and perhaps the performance of a well-learned skill) distracts the brain by putting the focus on language and thus interfering with access to non-verbal aspects of a memory.
Verbal overshadowing has previously been found to affect memories for how things look or taste. Past research found witnesses had a harder time accurately recognizing a face after being asked to describe it from memory. But this new research extends the phenomenon to motor skills, including sports.
Flegal said the overshadowing effect doesn't appear to adversely affect novice golfers who have not yet developed sufficient skills to forget, and it probably wouldn't impact the most expert golfers like Tiger Woods, but would definitely hinder those in the mid-range of ability.
Procedural memory controls motor skills and describing what you have done seems to disrupt procedural memories, she said, advising golfers to avoid talking about and over-analyzing their swing in between putts.This may be especially hard for golf instructors, however, who need to talk about what they do all the time, flipping an old adage on its head: Those who teach, can't do.
Provided by University of Michigan
-
Psychologist shows why we 'choke' under pressure -- and how to avoid it
Sep 21, 2010 |
4.3 / 5 (26) |
4
-
Sleep apnea therapy improves golf game
Nov 02, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Putting off the perfect putt?
Jan 30, 2009 |
2.5 / 5 (2) |
1
-
Songbirds offer clues to highly practiced motor skills in humans
Dec 21, 2007 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
0
-
Fast photon control brings quantum photonic technologies closer
8 hours ago |
5 / 5 (4) |
0
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (33) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (5) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Is Everyday Technology Killing Us?
Feb 08, 2012
-
Exercise and weight loss
Feb 08, 2012
-
Why do we have head aches? Our brains can't feel anything.
Feb 07, 2012
-
"The end of diseases" by David Agus, interview from Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Feb 04, 2012
-
Oncolytic adenovirus
Feb 04, 2012
-
Nutrition label stuffs and diets
Feb 02, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - Medical Sciences
More news stories
Researchers illuminate link between sodium, calcium and heartbeat
Using the Canadian Light Source synchrotron, researchers from the University of British Columbia have revealed, for the first time, one of the molecular mechanisms that regulates the beating of heart cells by controlling ...
56 minutes ago |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
0
|
Oxygen-deprived baby rats fare worse if kept warm
New study suggests that baby rats deprived of oxygen, but kept warm, had bigger swings in glucose and insulin, metabolic and physiologic effects that could increase the chances of brain damage. Findings could have implications ...
58 minutes ago |
not rated yet |
0
Fetal exposure to radiation increases risk of testicular cancer
Male fetuses of mothers that are exposed to radiation during early pregnancy may have an increased chance of developing testicular cancer, according to a study in mice at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. ...
17 minutes ago |
not rated yet |
0
Prolonged fructose intake not linked to rise in blood pressure
Eating fructose over an extended period of time does not lead to an increase in blood pressure, according to researchers at St. Michael's Hospital.
47 minutes ago |
not rated yet |
0
Challenges of identifying cognitive abilities in severely brain-injured patients
Only by employing complex machine-learning techniques to decipher repeated advanced brain scans were researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell able to provide evidence that a patient with a severe brain injury could, ...
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
37 minutes ago |
not rated yet |
0
Music service gives Myspace second wind
Faded online social network Myspace said Monday it was getting a second wind due to the popularity of a freshly launched online music player.
Computer programs that think like humans
Intelligence what does it really mean? In the 1800s, it meant that you were good at memorising things, and today intelligence is measured through IQ tests where the average score for humans is 100. ...
Study shows children with IBD have difficulty in school, mostly due to absences
Children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) may have difficulty functioning in school, particularly because their tendency to internalize problems can impact attendance. These are the findings from a Nationwide Children's ...
Fast photon control brings quantum photonic technologies closer
(PhysOrg.com) -- Using photons instead of electrons to transmit information could lead to faster and more secure ways to communicate, among other advantages. Now a team of physicists has taken another step toward realizing ...
Brain-imaging technique predicts who will suffer cognitive decline over time
Cognitive loss and brain degeneration currently affect millions of adults, and the number will increase, given the population of aging baby boomers. Today, nearly 20 percent of people age 65 or older suffer ...
Neuron memory key to taming chronic pain
For some, the pain is so great that they can't even bear to have clothes touch their skin. For others, it means that every step is a deliberate and agonizing choice. Whether the pain is caused by arthritic joints, an injury ...