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Feedforward control requires proprioceptors to work efficiently. Advanced information about the upcoming movement is utilized, along with a copy of the motor command, to predict sensory consequences of completing the motor command. Feedforward control is utilized daily as I walk around campus. Ramps make walking easier for everyone as the shallow incline is easy to navigate onto and off of sidewalks. Feedforward control allows me to prepare and efficiently utilize ramps as I navigate the city of Madison. Feedback is consistently being sent to my reference mechanism as I walk in order to determine if any errors occur while I continue moving. As I notice a ramp approaching, I go through the stages of information processing and generate a prediction of the feedback that will occur during each stage of using the sidewalk ramp. This predicted feedback is used by the reference mechanism to determine if an error occurs during the production of the movement up and down the sidewalk ramp. This is accomplished by the actual feedback being compared to the expected feedback.

Here is a video of me utilizing feedforward control to navigate a sidewalk ramp.

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When I think of sports I think of practice. The two are no mutually exclusive at all as any athlete has spent countless hours practicing the sport they love. However, I never realized how much studying is like sports. Studying is essentially practice, except instead of a game there are exams.

If practice is to be the most efficient it can, blocked practice should not be utilized. This is true for studying as well. I have found throughout the last few years of college that if I study material in the same order and the same way every time, my exam scores suffer. However, if I use completely random studying my performance also isn't the best it can be. Blocked and random studying represent the extremes of practice variability. Random studying has the highest amount of contextual interference while blocked studying has the lowest amount of contextual interference, neither of which are the most beneficial to me.

The most beneficial variability of studying for me is moderate amounts of contextual interference. For example, when I am studying for anatomy exams I break up the material into regions of the body (blocks) and study those blocks in different orders each time I study. Furthermore, I mix up the mode of studying. Sometimes I make flashcards and other times I draw out pictures. The action plan reconstruction hypothesis explains why this type of studying is the most beneficial. It states that as new tasks are presented, the action plan used to complete the task is continuously abandoned and reconstructed. This process makes the action plans, the thought processes to answer questions during studying, more memorable.

This gif represents how I felt when I used blocked studying techniques.

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Most days on the first floor of the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research, I find myself intricately pipetting small amounts of liquid at a desk. Pipetting is a way to move measured amounts of liquid from one place to another. In order to correctly use the pipette, there are three essential components that must be accounted for: transport, grasp, and manipulation.

The transport phase consists of getting my arm and hand to the location of the pipette. The grasp phase is when my hand is opened and closed on the pipette, and the manipulation phase is when I move and orient the pipette in the correct position to be able to draw up liquid, move it to where I need to deposit the liquid, and achieve the goal of the task. These three components are coordinated for me to be able to successfully pipette some amount of liquid from one container to another container.

Here is a gif that shows what pipetting looks like.

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How Do You Hit a Baseball? Vestibuloocular Relfex, Duh

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How Do You Hit a Baseball? Vestibuloocular Relfex, Duh

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Batting in baseball is very difficult. So difficult that the best baseball players in the world strive to succeed just three out of every ten at bats. Wouldn't it be great if the top of every profession required only a  30% success rate?

Baseballs move very quickly from the pitchers hand to the catchers mitt, and don't allow a lot of time for the hitter to decide if he should swing or not. It would be much more difficult to get the bat into the correct position to make contact without the vestibuloocular reflex (VOR). When I am watching a pitcher wind up and uncork his arm to throw a pitch, the fovea of both my eyes remain fixated on his hand regardless of head movement. VOR allows a tight relationship between the head and eyes to exist as our head moves in space. So, as my head moves slightly in anticipation of getting ready to swing, my eyes rotate in the opposite direction of head movement to ensure the area of highest visual acuity, the fovea, remains on the most important piece of information, the baseball.

Here is a gif of what happens when my VOR is working well and I get a good pitch to hit.

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Growing up I loved sports. I played anything that had a ball: football, basketball, tennis, everything. Baseball quickly grew to be my favorite of all of them. I loved the way the grass smelled, the sound of balls smacking into gloves, and the crack of the bat. I began playing baseball at five years old. Every spring and summer I was swinging a bat, and I became pretty accustomed to the motor skills necessary to hit a pitch.

As I grew older, a new sport started to become a bigger part of my summers. I began to golf when I was around ten years old. Up until this time, I had no experience swinging a golf club. All I knew was baseball. Golf clubs were lighter, had a smaller handle, required a different grip and new motor functions. Lucky for me, the movements required for both are similar. A golf and baseball swing both require a "load" sequence of transferring weight onto the back leg followed by a quick rotational movement forward shifting weight onto the front side of the body as contact is made. These similarities constitute observable movement patterns that occur during the performance of the skill. According to the identical elements theory, these similar component parts would result in positive transfer. Additionally both of these skills require similar muscle groups to shift balance between the back leg and front leg, which relates to the theory of elaborated automatisms. This theory states that self-corrections made during a movement help in the performance of that skill.

Here is a gif of what my golf swing might look like if I did not have the benefit of positive transfer.