Assignments Spring 2005

Assignment One

Question 1.  Over the last century, much evidence has accumulated that indicates humans process information through three stages.  Explain how the information processing model can account for an American baseball player hitting a pitched baseball.  Explain how the information processing model can account for a basketball player dribbling around multiple defensive players, jump in the air to shoot, switch the ball into his or her other hand as a defender approaches to block the original shot and then shoots the ball.  Be sure to identify the number of bits of information that the baseball and basketball player must process to accomplish their respective tasks.  Be sure to keep in mind the data presented in Figure 3.6 of Schmidt, R.A. and Lee, T.D. Human Information Processing - Chapter 3 in Motor Control and Learning - A Behavioral Emphasis as you develop your answer.

Question 2.  What factors would you use to build the argument that the brain and spinal cord are really the same “organ”?  What factors would you use to build the argument that the brain and spinal cord are distinct organs?

Assignment Two

Question 1.  What is Thomas Stoffregan’s idea of intermodal stimulation?  Do you agree or disagree with his proposition?  According to Stoffregan, can a “deaf”or “blind” person fully experience “life”?  Is a deaf or blind person “really” different than you and your classmates?  Are you and your classmates really different than Michael Jordan in his prime?  

Question 2.  What might Neisser and Stoffregan agree upon when it comes to perception?

Assignment Three

From what you know of Dr. Bernstein’s work, what might be supportive of a motor program concept?  What in Bernstein’s work might be supportive of a dynamical system/action theory approach?

On page 260 in Chapter 11:  The Bernstein Perspective:  II. The Concept of Muscle Linkage or Coordinative Structure, the authors begin to talk about a “constant relationship of the activity among muscles, regardless of the speed of locomotion . . .”  The authors then return to the concept of equations of constraint as an explanation for how the control of how multiple degrees of freedom can be simplified.  How would the information processing model with its reliance upon motor programs explain the invariance in muscle activity and reduction of degrees of freedom?  Speculate what an equation of constraint at the neurophysiological level might look like.  Is your explanation "better" or "worse" than your explanation for what a motor program "looks like"?

Assignment Four    

Design a simple experiment that we could perform in class that demonstrates the concept of “entrainment”.  The constraints are that the entrainment must occur within a short period of time, thus please don’t suggest putting two clocks on the wall.  You can suggest a whole-body task, a single limb task or a two-person task.  We will try to actually perform one or two of the more interesting experiments. 

In chapter 12 of the Bernstein Perspective the authors identify three classes of information:  exteroceptive, exproprioceptive and proprioceptive.  What kind of information would you obtain if you looked at yourself in a mirror?

Assignment Five

In his article titled “Applying the Theory of Action Systems to the Study of Motor Skills”, Edward Reed “goes off”.  Take one of Reed’s points that you like and expound upon it.  Make sure to tell me why you liked the point.  Take one of Reed’s point that you did not like and expound upon it.  Be sure to tell me why you didn’t like his point.

In their chapter titled “An Ecological Approach to Perception and Action” Turvey and Kugler provide some examples of “dimensionless” information that animals may use for prospective control.  Develop and argue for two situations in which you think dimensionless information could be directly detected by an animal in the service of action.  In one of your examples, provide an example of when the “information” might be incorrect correct in the sense that what is being specified by the sensory information leads to a misperception of an affordance.

Assignment Six

What does the information processing model and the "stage" driven view of maturation/motor development have in common.

In Newell's chapter titled "Coordination, Control and Skill" he talks about "relative motion over absolute motion in identifying many types of events.
Specifically, it appears that the topological properties of the relative motion of the body and limbs specify the perception of a given activity."
Relate this concept to that of Gibson's idea of "lawfully structured energy flows" and visual perception.
 

Assignment Seven

Using the data in the Excel file, graph the data in a configuration space, in an event space and a state space.  Describe the different sort of feedback you would provide for each of those “spaces”.

Assignment Eight

In their article, Newell and Vaillancourt review Bernstein’s ideas regarding the changing “use” of degrees of freedom as one learns a motor task.  How would Thelen explain these changes.

Discuss differences and similarities between motor learning and motor development.  Finally, answer the question is motor learning just a specific case of motor development or is motor development a specific case of motor learning?

Assignment Nine

Using the data collected in class, develop the following graphs for each condition.  Condition 1 is walking, Condition 2 is jogging.

  1. Time series angular displacements of all three segments (see Fig. 1 for angle calculation). 
  2. Time series angular velocities of all three segments
  3. Angle-angle diagrams of ankle to shank and shank to thigh
  4. Phase plane portraits of foot, shank, and thigh
  5. Joint angle curves for ankle and knee angles (plotted together, as in Fig 4.7). 
  6. For 5 consecutive steps calculate the point estimate relative phase between the ankle and knee (mean and SD).

Answer the following questions

What information is provided by the angle-angle diagrams and the phase plane portraits?

Do the phase plane portraits for each body segment display any differences between the two conditions?  If so, describe.  How could you quantify any apparent differences? 

What were you able to determine from the nonlinear measures versus the traditional time series measures (don’t BS)?

 

Figure 1

 

Assignment Ten

1a.  Develop a 50 point (iteration) of a two dimensional uncoupled “map”.  You may choose the initial values and the equations to be used in the iterations. Develop an X-Y plot of this graph.

 1b.  Develop a 50 point (iteration) of a two dimensional coupled “map”.  You may choose the initial values and the equations to be used in the iterations.  Develop an X-Y plot of this graph.

 1c.  In phase space plot the Y dimension data for your uncoupled map.

 1d.  In phase space plot the Y dimension data for your coupled map.

 1e.  Develop and plot a return map of the X dimension of your uncoupled map.

 2.  What would Bernstein have to say about the philosophy of determinism?  Why would he say that?