Self-controlled concurrent feedback and the education of attention towards perceptual invariants

Human Movement Science 28 (2009) 450–467

Michaël Huet a, Cyril Camachon a,b, Laure Fernandez a, David M. Jacobs c,
Gilles Montagne a,*

a Université de la Méditerranée, Faculté des Sciences du Sport, Institut des Sciences du Mouvement, 163 Avenue de Luminy,
13009 Marseille, France
b Centre de Recherche de l’Armée de l’Air, Salon en Provence, France
c Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

Abstract:
The present study investigates the effects of different types of concurrent
feedback on the acquisition of perceptual-motor skills.
Twenty participants walked through virtual corridors in which
rhythmically opening and closing sliding doors were placed. The
participants aimed to adjust their walking speed so as to cross
the doors when the doors were close to their maximal aperture
width. The highest level of performance was achieved by learners
who practiced the task with unambiguous self-controlled concurrent
feedback, which is to say, by learners who could request that
feedback at wish. Practice with imposed rather than self-controlled
feedback and practice without concurrent feedback were shown to
be less effective. Finally, the way in which the self-controlled concurrent
feedback was presented was also found to be of paramount
importance; if the feedback is ambiguous, it may even prevent participants
from learning the task. Clearly, unambiguous self-controlled
feedback can give rise to higher levels of performance
than other feedback conditions (compared to imposed schedule)
but, depending on the way it is presented, the feedback can also
prevent the participants from learning the task.
In the discussion it is argued that unambiguous self-controlled
concurrent feedback allows learners to more rapidly educate their
attention towards more useful perceptual invariants and tocalibrate the relation between perceptual invariants and action
parameters.