Arianna Fogliata, D. Mazzilli, R. Borghini, A. Ambretti, L. Martiniello
Understanding how human beings generate movement is a fundamental objective due to the implications that it itself has in the various fields of application, especially those concerning the teaching methodology in stages of growth. Starting from the study of the Sincrony Theory (and its methodological applications into sports field, the authors have built an experimental paradigm to verify the different impact of Motor Programs based on the cause of movement compared to Motor Programs based on the effect. The basic idea is that movement perceived on a visual level matches to the effect of muscle contractions not visible in the manifest act but which are the cause. The authors studied a paradigm to evaluate whether through simple linguistic indications aimed at making a motor pattern used for causes, changes in performance would have been recorded. The authors therefore chose to evaluate running performance in growing youth who were not trained in this sporting discipline. The authors modified only the language with which the subjects were asked to run and evaluating the possible performance differences through the Cooper test.
The authors tested three groups of subjects, all groups initially carried out the test without receiving indications related to running technique. Subsequently to”group one” the experimenters explained about the running technique based on the activation of Motor Cause patterns, based on synchrony methodology. No methodological specifications were received from the “second group”. The “third group” was given technical explanations based on the correctness of the technique. The results showed a 6% increase in the first sample with a statistically significant difference compared to the control, sample three did not show performance improvements and the performance results were variable compared to those of groups one and two.
According to the authors, the reasons for these results lie in the fact that when the athletes manage to have a motor program based on the real causes of the movement, the system is optimized, with less use of the antagonist muscles recruited in that given action. Normally, however, this does not happen since the Motor Programs are on average based on effects: "thinking" about a movement (by effects) causes, according to the authors, a slowdown due to both a greater elaboration process and a greater involvement of the antagonists in the action. In the third group, the authors wanted to ascertain the contribution of learning by inverse model,i.e. by correcting the motor output through inverse feedback linked to the effect that should be obtained if the motor project were based on the causes without however giving an explanation to the athlete of the themselves.
In this case not incrise performative is according to the authors based on the fact that the inverse corrections cause a sort of attentional overload until there is automation of the new motor patterns. The authors expect that in the latter case, if the subjects repeated the test several times, training to manage the corrections on the motor output, a performative improvement would be restablished. In the light of the foregoing, it may be extremely interesting to deepen the argument for which the type of explanation can influence the optimization of the motor gesture.