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8) Encoding Specificity Principle and Test Taking

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8) Encoding Specificity Principle and Test Taking

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I was so excited to go to Montana this summer but when I found out that the first test was the same time I would be going to Montana, I was less than thrilled. I was on my way across the country while I was studying for the test. Two days of driving, doing homework for this class, and studying for the test. I was going to take the test the day we were suppose to arrive at my girlfriend's aunts hours near Glacier National Park. Normally I would do all my homework and notes for this class while I was at home and off from work in my room with no other distractions. I was hoping to get some peace and quiet in her house so I could finish up studying and take the test later in the day but its next to impossible with three adolescent boys in the home.
This environment was not the most suitable to say the least.

It has been shown that memory representation for an action has stored with it necessary sensory and motor feedback information that is specific to the conditions in which the action was performed. Since I had done most of my work for this class at my house and had to study for my test on the way in a car and was taking it in an environment that I was not use too, my test performance may have been lower.
I am not gonna say that the reason I didn't perform as well as I wanted to on the first test was because of the encoding specificity principle but I defiantly think it played an influence on the score that I had. I thoroughly believe that I would have scored higher if I could have studied at my house and took the test at my house as well.
For the 2nd test, I studied in the same environment and tested in the same environment and scored higher on the multiple choice than I did last time. If the pronounced effect isn't that great, it is still convincing enough to use this principle for the future.

Here's an example of the expression on my face after I looked at my notes and realized that I knew a lot of the answers but couldn't recall them as well as I should of.

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During the summer, I work for a roofing & siding company working primarily on large flat roofs. A common task at my job is cutting and fitting insulation on to the roof to ensure its covered by the companies warranty. When I have to cut in these large 4 foot by 8 foot pieces of insulation, I sometimes have to take four measurements to cut in a pipe. I experienced a real frustrating situation not too long ago. I was taking the four measurements to cut in a pipe, and my boss calls for my name to come help him. I come over to help and start thinking about that task tot is complete. I go back to what I was doing and I can't remember a single measurement. So I take the 4 measurements again, and again I get interrupted and focused on another task. I go back to cutting this piece, and I can't remember any of the numbers again! This is incredibly frustrating to me but not uncommon for people to have. What I experienced was known as retroactive interference. It is defined as an interfering activity that happens immediately after the showcasing of the information you want to remember. I tried to remember the 4 numbers but other external information took me away from remembering. Since short-term memory is only at a maximum of 30 seconds, and I had other more memorable tasks to remember while trying to not forget the measurements. I experienced a strain on the total things my short-term memory can remember at one time which is 5 to 9. Which lead me to forgetting the numbers to cut into the pipe.
It was almost like I had my memory erased like the neuralyzer in the Men in Black movies.

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One of the most common warm-up techniques that we did in youth baseball was an exercise where two people would start 10 feet away from each other. They would both throw the ball at the center of the person's chest. If both people did this correctly, then one person would step about five feet back. They would then attempt the same thing, trying to remain accurate. If they are again correct, they continue to keep on stepping back. If the ball does not hit the other person's chest you were suppose to step up a few feet. If the ball dropped, you were suppose to start from the original position. I didn't know at the time, but the coaches had implemented the Schema theory as an integral part of the beginning of practice. The Schema theory says that when individuals practice a class of generalized motor programs, they attain rules that define different parameter values to create various versions of the same task. I was able to correlate a force value for throwing a baseball with the distance the ball has to travel to the other person's chest. Since we did this before every practice, I must of practiced thousands of throws each time updating my schema a little more. By the end of my first year, I had a strong set of rules that associated the force I through the ball and the distance thrown.

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From my new hobby of disc golfing, I attracted the interest of my mom. She told me that she tried it a long time ago and thought it was fun. I offered to go to the course with her and teach her how to play. I told her I would give her feedback on the mechanics of her throw immediately after I saw her throw. I gave my mom a detailed idea of what I thought was doing incorrectly . I told her that she released too soon and stepped in the wrong way. In this way, I gave her what is called descriptive feedback. It is defined as giving the learner information on what they are doing incorrectly instead of telling her how to correct the mistake. Instead I should of told her an individual part that she made a mistake on that I thought was the most important. I tried to correct all of her mistakes at one time and then she began to get information overload from me. I should of developed a skills analysis to determine what component parts are most critical.
During that same day, I also gave her feedback concurrently with every new hole. My mother no longer relied on her own inherent feedback towards the throw but instead relied on the augmented feedback that I was giving her. That whole time she never actually utilized the proprioceptive information from the muscles in her arm. She started to rely on the feedback that I was giving her, and it started to become a part of her learning process. It became a regulatory variable in the performance.
Next time when I go with her knowing what I know now from this class, I will practice the fading technique. I will give her feedback on every hole the next time we go. Only after there has been a delay between the completion of the skill and time for her to interpret her own inherent feedback. The time after that, I will only give her feedback only every second trial. I will then reduce the augmented feedback even more the third time and the fourth. This will be beneficial for my mother because she will be able to quickly get the idea of the task and will be in the ballpark for correct performance. It also will prevent her from relying on my augmented feedback for the completion of the skill.

This is my mom after the first day with me when I just gave her information overload. She actually ended doing worse by the end then at the beginning after have never practicing it.

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During the process of me learning the skill of throwing in disc golf, I had only played with my experienced friends  my first time. The last time they had seen me throw a disc, I had no experience, couldn't throw with power or accuracy, and could never hit par on any hole. I knew from my own practice now  that I could consistency hit under par for pretty much 16 out of the 18 holes . I also knew that my expert friends were around the same experience level as well. I proposed that we used an app on our phones that tracks the score of everyone during the course to retain accuracy. Everyone agreed that that sounded fun and we continued to begin the course. After the first four holes, I'm 4 throws under par and one of my expert friends is one throw under par and the other is two throws under par. They are all shocked, they don't understand how I could be doing better than them? I'm so happy to be beating them that I start to brag about how good I am and that we should bet on who wins. They all agree on this, and now we have a 20 dollar bet on the game.
Now they only play the course when they are together. So they are both use to playing and competing against someone. I only have had consistent experience with playing the course myself.   Throughout the game, I had the lead for a few holes and then my two other friends took the lead a couple of times. During the final two holes we are all tied up. I feel pretty confident but nervous because I do not want to lose. So I start to think about my release and how I should step and throw the disc. I took what was in my procedural memory and I forced it back into my declarative memory. I altered the way I have learned to control this movement pattern in response to a high pressure situation. I reverted to what is called skill-focused control and I ended up suffering on the next two holes. I lost the bet, came in last place and I lost my bragging rights as the better disc golfer.

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Growing up, I never really played with Frisbees or disc golf. So when my friends asked me one afternoon if I wanted to go play at the local course, I said why not. Most of my friends have had experience throwing a Frisbee growing up while some of them had just a decent amount of experience with disc golf. One the first hole, I couldn't throw the disc more than 50 feet accurately. I had no idea how to move my arm, my feet, or how to angle the shot. The friends of mine who I would consider experts offered help, but couldn't quite verbalize the form mechanics of  driving in disc golf. This led me to believe that those friends were in the autonomic stage of learning where they have a great procedural knowledge of how to perform the skill rather than knowing about the skill. They were able to detect and correct their own errors in performance to refine their skill but couldn't explain their mechanics to me . Another one of my friends who was more experienced than me but less than my expert friends was able to give me advice on how to do driving. He told me that I need to keep my disc parallel with the group and use my body momentum along with the flick of my wrist to generate force on the throw. My friend would be in the associate stage of learning where he still retains some of the declarative knowledge of the skill. Along with more consistent movements and the ability to detect errors.
I took the advice that my friend gave me and tried to fit that into strategies that feel correct to me. After going to the course a couple times by myself, I would sometimes make huge errors and while other times I would throw really well. I started to see very large gains in improvement on my throw and I started to become more accurate. I transitioned into the associate stage after a couple weeks of practice by myself. I started to have very consistent movement patterns and I was able to detect errors that I was making. I no longer needed to talk myself through the movement and I started to see less & less improvement.
A long time after that, I started focusing on other areas of the task that could refine my skill. I saw that the angle of the disc changes the distance and direction thrown. I now could focus on getting even more power on my throw because certain parts of my throwing mechanic had become automatic to me. I was now able to detect and correct the errors I was making. I would bring two discs with me and If i made a mistake with the first disc, I was usually able to fix that mistake If I attempted it with the second disc. This leads me to believe that I have reached the autonomous stage of learning for throwing because my movements are very consistent and I have seen only little improvements in my score after 18 holes.

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 5) Cost of Anticipation as a Defensive Linemen

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 5) Cost of Anticipation as a Defensive Linemen

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Throughout my junior and senior year of high school at Sauk Prairie, I played defensive end for our football team. One of the most important things to remember as a defensive linemen is not to go offside. This is a form of temporal anticipation because you know what is going to occur and where, but you don't know exactly what is going to occur. In one of my football games senior year, I had taken advantage of this form of anticipation because the quarterback had the same general cadence on when he hiked the ball. He was using the same short, regular fore-periods. There was obvious benefits to me anticipating the stimulus because I was able to begin moving towards to the correct location earlier than if I was to look and wait for the ball to be snapped. I was able to make tackles that I normally would not be able to without anticipation. I experienced a very real cost of my temporal situation in a 3rd and short situation within the 10 yard line. I was anticipating jumping at the same time I always did because I really wanted to make the drive-ending tackle. I anticipated when the quarterback was going to give his normal cadence, and I exploded from my stance as soon as he said hit. But the ball hadn't left the center's hands. I had gave the opposing team a free first down on the five yard line. This shows the real costs of anticipation that can occur when one individual makes a mistake in a team sport. The look on my coach's face after they scored a touchdown to take the lead and I came to the sideline was something like this.

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1) My Adventures of Backing up a Pop-up Camper

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1) My Adventures of Backing up a Pop-up Camper

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I have always loved the outdoors. I enjoy fishing, hiking, and just sitting around a campfire eating smores. Me and my girlfriend usually try to plan a couple small camping trips in the summer for little weekend vacations. Recently tho, tent/car camping has gotten to be a bit of a pain. It takes to long to set up, and its not very comfortable. And our latest camping trip at Governor Dodge state park got us stuck in our tent for multiple hours in a thunderstorm just trying to keep the water from pooling on our tent. We even had to cancel a camping trip earlier in the summer that we had planned to do for months ahead of time on Madeline Island because of the colder weather. We couldn't imagine being in a tent when there is a low of 47 degrees in June!
Something had to change, so we started looking at what we could afford and we settled upon an older pop-up camper. It was a 1999 Jayco eagle pop-up camper that didn't have any a/c or refrigerator, electricity didn't work, but the canvas and the roof was in good condition. This camper was absolutely perfect for us for a starter camper. Due to us both being college students, our budget wasn't that high to begin with. So it was the best we could do with the money we could afford.
I am going to go pick up this trailer, and obviously I had no problem backing up my car to the ball of the camper. This was no problem to me because I had a compatible stimulus- response situation. I have backed up my car before and have associated the movement of the wheel with the direction of my car. It occurred to me while I was driving home that I have never had any real experience with backing up a trailer before. I have on certain occasions drove a truck with a boat attached to it but nothing where I had to back it up next to a pier. I thought to myself that this will be interesting to try to figure this out.
When I got home, I realized that I would have to park in between my neighbor's house and my parent's boat. I try to put my car in the right angle to back in and once I start reversing I realize that the trailer is moving in the opposite away that I want it too. This doesn't make sense to me, why won't the trailer move in the same way as my car? I attempt this again, and again, and again, until eventually I get the hang of it. The whole time I'm slower to decide what movement to make and make a lot of errors. I am encountering an incompatible stimulus-response in this  situation which is also called the Simon effect.
Why did it take me so long to figure out how correct my errors? This is because of the change in direction when I am turning the wheel. My whole life backing up a car, I have associated turning my wheel right and my car going right. Same for when I turn my wheel to the left, it should turn left. When we start to recognize similar perceptual components of a movement, we have a linked response from memory that is the preferred method of responding. This is known as perception-action coupling and it is the major reason why I experienced such a negative transfer between backing up my car and backing up a trailer.