Reading §
Lecture §
- Expertise
- What is the Fitts’s three-stage model of skills (motor programs)?
- What is an expert?
- An expert is someone who has mastered a skill better than most people
- What type of learning that experts that differs than average?
- How does one become an expert
- Through extensive Practice
- Some estimates indicate a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice is required for deep expertise in a complex skill
- Some psychologists maintain that practice alone is sufficient to become an expert in any domain (though perhaps not worldclass)
- Through talent (the ability to master a skill with little effort)
- Studies of twins confirm that both talent and effort matter
- Brain Substrates
- Basal Ganglia
- Where is basal ganglia located?
- At the base of the forebrain
- What communicative functions does basal ganglia do?
- What does basal ganglia differ with hippocampus in learning and memory
- Basal Ganglia damage selectively impairs skill learning, but not episodic memory
- Hippocampus damage impairs episodic memory, but not skill learning
- Thus, basal ganglia is particularly important in forming new skill memories
- It is unclear if the basal ganglia are involved in consolidation of skill memory, storage, or both; also lesion effects on skill learning could be due to movement problems, not specific to learning
- How does skill practice show in cortical level
- Skill practice expands the amount of cortical space dedicated to representing skill-related sensations and movements
- Cerebellum
- What does impairment in the cerebellum affect learning and object tracing
- Patients with cerebellar damage take twice as long to trace images compared with controls
- Rate of learning similar to controls
- What is the effect of lateralization?
- Left cerebellum activity decreases
- Right cerebellum activity increase