Amplification of error: a learning strategy to improve motor skills

The correction of technical errors in motor skills represents one of the major issues in motor learning: consistent errors in technique, especially under competitive stress, are very common among athletes and are perhaps among the major factors that can cause underperformance. The aim of this research was to compare the effectiveness of a leaning strategy called “Method of Amplification of Error” (MAE) to the traditional instruction method (DI) and to a no-feedback control condition (C) in improving the performance in athletes with different levels of ability. Traditional methods of teaching are based on delivering extrinsic feedback by direct instruction or by demonstration. The MAE is an alternative strategy for technique error correction based on the assumption that subjects can learn to correct their movements through their mistakes. The exaggeration of a specific error helps the subject to make useful comparisons between motor patterns. Amplifying the subject’s “main error” allows him/her to better understand what is not to be done, thereby enhancing the correction of the main motor error. The amplified error trial provides the learner with new intrinsic feedback, stimulates the functions of perceptive categorization and the conceptual and symbolic elaboration of the received information, that enhances his/her error detection capability. Moreover, the effectiveness of MAE is based on the amplification of the main error, while the amplification of secondary errors is less effective in respect to the main one as they are assumed to be the result of compensatory adjustments to achieve the final movement The second aim of this project was to test how performance parameters vary as a consequence of main error’s vs. secondary errors’ amplification. Results showed at the post-test and at the retention test the MAE group showed a greater improvement than the DI and C groups for several kinematic parameters. The technical problem is solved quickly in just one single session learning. MAE employs movement as feedback and the feedback is maintained in the motor-perceptive language used by the subject’s own body. The different approach of MAE is that it is an unlearning task rather than a re-teaching one. In this way the subject reduces the error with a full transfer of learning, without the need for the customary adaptation period.