Deck 12: The Stages of Learning

Question 1

The negatively accelerated rate of improvement, which is typical of performance changes for beginners learning a skill, has been mathematically formalized and is known as the _______ law of practice.

Answer 1

power

Question 2

According to Bernstein, appropriately organized practice is best described as:

A) A form or repetition without repetition
B) Repetition of a particular movement pattern
C) Repetition of a particular pattern of neuromotor processes
D) None of the above

Answer 2

A

Question 3

According to Bernstein, during the early phase of skill acquisition, learners tend to:

A) Freeze degrees of freedom
B) Unfreeze degrees of freedom
C) Select efficient movement patterns
D) None of the above

Answer 3

A

Question 4

According to Gentile's model, the goal of diversification in the second stage of learning is specifically related to ________ motor skills.

Question 5

If a novice and highly skilled typist were required to perform a verbal secondary task while typing on a keyboard the novice's typing performance would be:

A) More negatively influenced than the skilled typist's
B) More positively influenced than the skilled typist's
C) No different from the skilled typist's
D) Impossible to assess

Question 6

According to Fitts and Posner, the learner moves through three stages when learning a motor skill. These are the cognitive, the associative, and the:

A) Fixated
B) Diversified
C) Verbal
D) Autonomous

Question 7

As a person practices a skill, an important change that occurs is the capability to:

A) Succeed on every attempt
B) Detect and correct errors
C) Involve more muscles in the action
D) Direct attention to individual parts of the movement

Question 8

According to the Fitts and Posner model, the stage of learning during which the learner makes a large number of errors and tries to answer a lot of "how to" questions is the ________ stage.

Question 9

According to Bernstein, during the last phase of skill acquisition, learners:

A) Freeze degrees of freedom
B) Unfreeze degrees of freedom
C) Exploit passive forces to minimize energy costs
D) Develop coordinative structures

Question 10

When a person learning handwriting moves the three arm segments as if two of the segments were one, this person demonstrates an early learning characteristic known as:

A) Freezing degrees of freedom
B) Freeing degrees of freedom
C) The power law of practice
D) Movement specific learning

Question 11

According to Ericsson:

A) Experts reach a stage of effortless automaticity in their performance
B) Expert attempts to avoid the stagnation associated with complete automaticity
C) Experts engage in conscious controlled processing, though in a more sophisticated way than novices
D) B and C

Question 12

Gentile's learning stages model indicates that in the second stage of learning, one goal of the learner is related specifically to closed skills. This goal is called:

A) Fixation
B) Diversification
C) Relevant
D) Irrelevant

Question 13

According to Gentile, the characteristics of an object that specify the movement characteristics required for grasping it are called ________ conditions.

Question 14

Changes in EMG patterns occur as a person becomes more skilled. These changes show that a person:

A) Increases in movement efficiency and coordination
B) Decreases in movement efficiency and coordination
C) Increases in movement efficiency but decreases in coordination
D) Decreases in movement efficiency but increases in coordination

Question 15

The brain areas that are active during the early stage of learning are typically:

A) The same as the areas active in the later stages of learning
B) Not the same as the areas active in the later stages of learning
C) Only those areas associated with cognitive and verbal activity
D) The same for the learning of all types of motor skills

Question 16

Ericsson and colleagues refer to the type of practice that is essential for the attainment of expertise as:

A) Mental practice
B) Physical practice
C) Deliberate practice
D) Repetitive practice

Question 17

Performing a skill with a minimum expenditure of energy is usually associated with which stage of learning?

A) Beginning stage
B) Intermediate stage
C) Advanced stage
D) All stages of learning

Question 18

Automatization of motor skills is associated with _____________ in cortical brain activity.

A) A reduction
B) An increase
C) No change
D) Strange oscillations

Question 19

Gentile's learning stages model indicates that in the first stage of learning, the learner must learn to discriminate between which two types of environmental context conditions?

A) Real vs. not real
B) Visual vs. verbal
C) Regulatory vs. nonregulatory
D) Environmental vs. internal

Question 20

According to Gentile, an important goal for the learner during the first stage of learning is to acquire a ________ pattern that will allow the person some degree of success at achieving the action goal of the skill.

Question 21

An important change in muscle activity that results from practice is that the activation pattern for agonist and antagonist muscle pairs becomes more ________ from trial to trial.

Question 22

Patterns of coordination can be organized to exploit passive forces and minimize energy costs.

Question 23

The term used to describe the change in the areas of the brain that are active in the different stages of learning is _____.

Question 24

An expert's knowledge about an activity is organized into more concepts than a novice's.

Question 25

The number of degrees of freedom and the complexity of the underlying control mechanism can either increase or decrease during learning.

Question 26

Learners in the later stages of learning typically "freeze degrees of freedom" in their attempt to control the multiple degrees of freedom of a complex motor skill.

Question 27

According to Gentile's stages of learning model, the learner's goals for the later stages depend on whether the skill is an open or closed skill.

Question 28

A performer characteristic that does not change across the stages of learning is the reliance on the sensory information that was available during the early stage.

Question 29

The Fitts and Posner stages of learning model proposes that learners engage in the highest amount of cognitive activity during the associative stage.

Question 30

A characteristic of changes in the coordination among limb segments during the learning stages is the development of more inter-segmental ________ as learning progresses from early to later stages.

Question 31

Research shows that expertise in all fields is the result of a minimum of 5 years of "deliberate" practice.

Question 32

If a skill is performed efficiently, then it is being performed with a minimum amount of expended ________.

Question 33

Research indicates that skilled performers direct their visual attention more quickly to ________ conditions in the environment than novices.

Question 34

Experts are similar to novices in how they use visual information to anticipate the actions of others.