Optimizing Outcomes in Rehabilitation: Motor Learning Principles and Beyond: Summary 52
• Auditory feedback, like metronomes or music, emphasizes timing and is less likely to cause dependency • Haptic feedback , which involves touch and somatic sensory information to guide movement, is the only form of feedback that gives real-time interaction information. However, it can also lead to dependency and passivity if it is overused. It is best during the initial learning phase LEARNING TIP! External feedback can be beneficial Another approach to learning and skill acquisition involves combining different sensory modalities, such as visual and auditory or visual and haptic feedback. This is called multimodal feedback and is most helpful when learning a complex motor task. Multimodal feedback includes audiovisual and visuohaptic feedback. Audiovisual feedback involves combining auditory and visual information to enhance learning. For instance, individuals can receive both visual cues and auditory tones when performing tasks like maintaining proper form during walking. This combination of sensory modalities helps improve task accuracy and reduces cognitive workload, making it particularly useful for complex motor tasks with a steep learning curve. Visuohaptic feedback combines both visual and haptic sensory information to enhance the understanding of timing during tasks. For example, when individuals use visuohaptic feedback while filling a container with water, they not only see the water level rise (visual) but also feel the weight of the water in their hand (haptic). This combination of sensory modalities allows patients to experience and adjust their movements in real time, making it particularly effective for improving the timing of actions. but can distract from the use of internal feedback and can be less efficient, requiring more cognitive resources than internal feedback.
| HEALTHCARE CONSIDERATION One important thing to keep in mind is that motor learning is most effective when it is task specific. In practice, this means that when working on building strength in specific muscles, the ultimate objective is to ensure that those exercises directly translate to practical, real-world activities that patients perform on a daily basis. Feedback is another element that plays a crucial role in improving motor performance and learning. Effective feedback is contingent on:
• What information is provided • How the information is provided • When the information is provided
Feedback can be either prescriptive (how to correct an error) or descriptive (whether or not an error occurred). During initial training, prescriptive feedback tends to be more effective because it provides specific instructions on how to correct errors made during a task. Prescriptive feedback helps patients understand what they are doing wrong and offers guidance on how to make improvements. As learners progress to later stages of skill acquisition, descriptive feedback becomes more useful. This is because during the advanced stages, individuals have already developed a foundational understanding of the task and acquired the basic skills. Feedback can also be internal or external. Internal feedback is provided by a person’s own internal sensory systems and requires working sensory systems to process information quickly and accurately. External or augmented feedback can be visual, auditory, or haptic. • Visual feedback, such as watching someone’s movements or using markers and targets, is beneficial for initially learning a skill but has the strongest tendency to foster dependency if overused
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