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You Have to Catch the Ball with Both Hands, Buddy!

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You Have to Catch the Ball with Both Hands, Buddy!

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Who knew that teaching a five year old how to play catch would be so difficult? I certainly did not know!
Over the summer, I have been nannying a recently turned five year old boy, and six (almost seven) year old girl. I take them to their activities, I pick them up from their activities, I make them food, and I play with them. One thing that I quickly noticed with the boy, though, was that he could not catch. Ever since the first time that I asked him if he was ready to catch a ball, and he said yes, only for me to sadly see the ball fall right in the middle of his widely outstretched arms, I have been trying to teach him how to catch properly.
Of course, at such a young age, he is still developing many of his motor skills. One area that he is noticeably lacking in, though, is his bimanual coordination. In the case of catching a ball, he is lacking skills in symmetric bimanual coordination, where the two hands/arms move at the same time and do the same things. What he needs to learn how to do is bring both of his arms and hands in at the same time to catch the object thrown to him. This skill of reaching and grasping the ball can be broken down into three components: Transport (getting the limb from one place to another), grasp (opening the hand and closing it down on the target), and manipulation (when the object is moved to achieve the goal of the task). Considering that the boy I nanny was not even able to perform the transport, since he left his arms outstretched and way too wide to catch anything, that was the first component I tried working on with him. Over the summer, he has improved upon the transport component, and now tries more to bring his arms together more quickly to at least create a form of a net to save the ball from hitting the ground. The first time he successfully caught a ball with me, I felt so proud of him! It is so interesting to see how kids develop their motor skills.
Unfortunately, last Thursday was the last day with my nanny kids for the summer, but hopefully the next time I see him he will be able to grasp objects thrown at him and manipulate them from there.

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When I was younger, from about ages 9-13, I took guitar lessons. I loved the idea of being able to play guitar, and there were points that I could actually play fairly well and memorized my chords, but there were also plenty of times where I just did not want to practice. I stopped going to lessons and told myself that I could just work on my guitar playing skills independently, but I quickly stopped playing as frequently as I used to. I also played clarinet in middle school and through high school, but it just wasn't the same as being able to play an instrument and sing at the same time.
Luckily, while working at my first job the summer after my junior year of high school, I saved up money to buy a ukulele--an instrument that I had been meaning to learn for a few years after obsessively watching ukulele covers on Youtube. Finally, I had another string instrument! At first, I was worried that I would have some difficulties at first and end up not practicing very much. However, the opposite happened. It was fairly simple to pick up playing the ukulele due to the similarity of processing requirements, one of the theories of positive transfer. Specifically, the transfer appropriate processing theory states that the degree of similarity between the cognitive processes required by two skills will influence the degree of transfer between them. Considering that the guitar and the ukulele are both string instruments, and are held in a similar fashion, and are played in a very similar manner, the cognitive processes for playing the two processes should be relatively the same. Going along with this, playing the ukulele also has similarity of skill and components to that of playing the guitar, because I still got to use my left fingers to hold down different frets and form chords, while my right hand did all the strumming/plucking. The only real difference between the build of the two instruments is that the ukulele is much smaller than the guitar, and has only four strings, versus the guitar's six strings. However, with the lower number of strings and smaller area to cover and stretch out my left fingers over to form chords, I personally find that the ukulele is easier to play with my small hands.
Below I have an old video of me showing that I can, in fact, play the ukulele. The song I play in the video is one of the first songs I learned, called "Riptide" by Vance Joy. I have unfortunately not been able to play this whole summer though because I have been so busy!

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The Frustrations of Terribly Designed Doors

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The Frustrations of Terribly Designed Doors

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In lecture, we read about theories of negative transfer. Negative transfer is when the environmental context characteristics of the two performance situations are similar, but the characteristics of the movements required to be successful at the task are different. One reason of why negative transfer effects occur is due to perception-action coupling. Perception-action coupling is when we recognize familiar perceptual components in a movement situation, and then we prefer responding to the situation with the response we pull from our memory that we have already associated with what we see. I personally hate doors looking like they are "pull" doors, with their handles jutting out for someone to grab and pull, but do not open because they are "push" doors. This design seems extremely flawed to me, because it just adds more inconvenience and frustration for people when they are in a rush and unable to open a door correctly.
Something similar to these terribly designed "push"/"pull" doors is how some of the doors in my new house are designed. We recently moved to this house over the past winter break, and it took us some time to adjust to where everything was--and how some of the doors are designed. On some of the doors in my house, we have handles that look like they should be twisted and then pulled to pull open the door. However, some of these handles in my house do not actually turn and, instead, just need to be pulled out to open the door. Thankfully, it was my brother that discovered this issue first and gave me the warning to not twist the handle on some of the doors around our house. Unfortunately, for him, he had fallen under the trap of perception-action coupling, and assumed to twist and then pull a handle of his closet door--to his dismay, he ended up twisting the handle right off the door. So, evidently, although sometimes perception-action coupling can help speed things up by allowing one to recognize familiar components and know how to respond properly, other times one should not listen to their memory's response because they might end up breaking doorknobs.
In the video below, I give a brief tour of some of the doorknobs around my house.

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Last summer, I worked for the Downtown Minneapolis YMCA as a Summer Power camp counselor. Each week, we would go swimming at least a couple of times, and I noticed that some kids just did not know how to swim. These kids would often get frustrated, having to wear life jackets when they would see other kids freely swimming around the pool. In order to not have to wear life jackets, the kids had to pass a swim test. So, for some reason, I tried to take matters into my own hands and help.
I went through swim lessons as a child and can take care of myself in a pool and swim around, but am definitely not an expert. However, what I did notice was that verbally explaining how to swim to a couple of 8 year olds was much more difficult than throwing myself in a pool and actually swimming. Evidently, swimming had become an automatic skill for me, where I do not really think too hard about every single movement I am doing. So, in motor learning terms, I had stored this skill in my procedural memory, so I could physically perform the skill; so, my knowledge of swimming was not declarative knowledge, where I could explain the skill in words. At the time, I just was so surprised that I was so terrible at explaining, and then mainly just tried to show the kids what I was physically doing since verbally explaining was just not going to work. Now I understand why explaining something that had seemed so simple to me had ended up being so difficult!
I wonder if someone like Michael Phelps would also struggle with this issue, especially since he is an expert! What have been his secrets to swimming so fast?

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Coach Servin' up Some Augmented Feedback

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Coach Servin' up Some Augmented Feedback

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In my glorious middle school days, I was a volleyball player. I loved the sport and loved my team, and always tried to practice when I had the chance. One particular issue that I had, though, was with serving overhand. In order to get onto the "A team", a.k.a the top team, one had to have a good grasp of knowing how to serve overhand. Our coach would demonstrate for us how he threw the ball up with his left hand and then smacked it smoothly over the net with his right hand--making the task seem so easy.
We practiced overhand serves so much, with my coach often going up to each of us, one at a time, to watch what we did and give us feedback on how to improve. This was an example of augmented feedback, which is information about a performance that supplements sensory feedback and that is given to someone from an external source. More specifically, my coach would give us knowledge of performance, a type of augmented feedback that gives information about the movement characteristics that led up to the performance outcome. This was very helpful to me because he would tell me what he noticed that I did wrong or what I could improve upon for my serve, and from here I would reevaluate how I was trying to execute the serve. After giving me help, he would then go on to another one of my teammates, and I had time to try to work out my serves by myself. After more practice, I got better at understanding my task intrinsic/inherent feedback, which is feedback that is naturally available from our sensory receptors when performing a skill. For example, I would notice when I threw the ball up to serve too high or too low, and would avoid hitting the ball so that I could try to improve my next throw and not waste time hitting a ball that would go into the net. I got a feel for how I should be throwing the ball and how hard I should hit it and, even though I now only play volleyball for fun *occasionally*, I still notice this feeling when I try to serve overhand today. I definitely do not serve as well I used to anymore, but I find it interesting that I can still notice the feeling of having not thrown the volleyball properly up.

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I understand that most students use Quizlet, or at least know what it is, and this is not an advertisement for Quizlet. However, I do have to say that Quizlet was a great invention. One of the best parts of Quizlet? Randomizing the notecards. Why? Because of contextual interference/variability of practice.
When I study flashcards for my classes, contextual interference theory plays a part in how I learn. If I keep flashcards in the same order as I am studying, I start memorizing the corresponding answers to the flashcards in the same order as they are presented. Then, if I randomize the cards or if someone decides to test me and asks me for the answers to the flash cards in random order, I do not perform very well because I had been memorizing the answers in order and had thus only kept what I learned in working memory. This goes along with what was said in lecture, with the elaboration hypothesis, where with blocked practice, the same strategy is used between trials so there are very little comparisons and less effort is used so one does not fully learn as well as they could with random practice.

I have noticed this pattern throughout my years of school of not learning as well when I keep my flashcards in the same order as I study. From this, I have adapted my study habits by randomizing the order of my flash cards (and, consequently, incorporating higher contextual interference), which has helped me learn better and perform better. It may make studying more frustrating at first because I am having trouble remembering what certain flash cards are since I do not have them in a specific order—this is supported by the action plan reconstruction hypothesis, since I am essentially reconstructing the action plan again as I go from flash card to flash card, rather than just memorizing answers in order. However, with random practice, what I have studied becomes more memorable and is better stored in long-term memory. Consequently, I actually learn what each concept is and can more easily recall the concepts on tests.

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Does anyone remember when they had to sit next to a left-handed person in class and you were constantly elbowing each other in an endless war over having space to write? (No offense to any left-handed people, we love you all!) Just a couple of weeks ago, my mom told me that she first learned how to write with her left hand. This was a surprise to me because throughout my entire existence, (that I can recall), I have only witnessed my mother using her right hand to write! However, her mother found this unacceptable and would literally grab her right hand, put a pencil in her grasp, and make her write with her right hand. Fast forward to present day, and my mom tells me that as a result of her mother's persistence, she is ambidextrous. This phenomenon that my mother went through was the bilateral transfer phenomenon. My mother learned how to do the same task (writing) but just with the contralateral limb.
If I try to write with my left hand, it does not look nearly as neat as it would with my right hand, and it takes me longer; but even without having practiced writing with my left hand, I can still perform the same task as my right hand has been physically trained to do. Many other people can find that they have the same case. The bilateral transfer could be explained by the cognitive explanation hypothesis and/or the motor control factors hypothesis. The cognitive explanation is that the positive transfer from a practiced to a non-practiced limb could be a result of the important cognitive information that is learned during practice. So, one could understand the steps of performing the task and could then try to impose this idea onto their contralateral limb. The motor control factors hypothesis would support the positive transfer from the right hand to the left hand because it states that by practicing with one limb, it strengthens the specific generalized motor program that the muscles in its contralateral limb would also use, and therefore would make it easier for the contralateral limb to perform the same task. Another part of the motor control factors hypothesis is the interhemispheric transfer of motor commands, which essentially states that when someone sends commands down to their right arm and fingers to reach out and grasp something, there are also subthreshold commands sent down the left arm. These signals are not strong enough to cause the left arm to move, but it helps "prime" the muscles for the sequence of movements needed to perform the task. In conclusion, by any of these hypotheses, my mother was able to learn how to write right-handed, and the average person can somewhat right with their non-preferred hand. It makes me curious to try writing more with my left-hand until I am somewhat proficient at being ambidextrous!
Fun Fact: Our last president, Barack Obama, was a lefty! However, he did not learn how to write with his right hand, as shown in photos when he always signed documents with his left hand.

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For so long, there has been a feud running--is it boys rule, girls drool or girls rule, boys drool? Well, see, maybe we all drool and it's just a matter of individual differences that makes us ladies excel in certain aspects of life while boys can excel in others? An individual difference variable is a defining, measurable trait of a person, such as weight, height, gender, and age.  Gender is one main individual difference variable that tends to get a lot of attention.
As a runner, I have noticed a lot about how gender can play a role in race performance. I always found it interesting how I would think that the fastest female runner on my team was so fast, but then I would see the top male on the boy's team and see that he would run about a minute faster than our top female. I always attributed this to hormones, with men having higher levels of testosterone than women, and not going through the same developmental stages as women that tend to slow women down. According to the Kinesiology 361 lecture, "Individual Differences", men tend to outperform women on many motor tasks, specially athletic pursuits. I would put running underneath this label as well. Of course, we did have female runners that would outperform many male runners as well (including myself at the time), but the point is that our fastest female runner was still slower than our fastest male runner.
I also found it interesting that, oftentimes, there would be up-and-coming middle school runners that would sometimes join us high school runners for practice because they were so fast. Two girls I knew specifically, though, had their performance diminish as they went through high school, and they had to work about twice as hard as some of the other top runners. I guessed that this may have been due to puberty hitting them hard. Puberty for the corresponding gender can be both a curse and a blessing can't it?