Development of explicit and implicit learning strategies in visual and motor performance in tasks requiring (or not) decision making under stress situation

• Grant number: 13/09855-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2013
• End date: August 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Schor
• Grantee: Martina Navarro
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In many sports, the time available to acquire and process the information necessary for optimal performance generating the optimal motor response is always limited. A technique that may help, by maximizing the automaticity of this entire process, is the implicit learning strategy. The implicit, as opposed to explicit, learning process tries to short circuit the verbal and/or analytical systems, preventing the use of working memory during learning (i.e. promoting learning without declarative knowledge). The advantages in adopting such strategy includes not only speed and efficiency in tracking the environment and acquiring visual information, but it also prevents performance decrements under pressure. Nonetheless, it still unclear in which circumstances the implicit strategy should be preferred over the explicit strategy. This project aims to investigate the effects of two training strategies, explicit vs. implicit, on visual-perceptual and motor performance in decision making and non-decision making tasks in a sport context. In order to investigate this issue, two experimental protocols were planned, based on the football penalty kick. The current project is not only totally integrated with the current studies being developed in the proposing laboratory, but also involves collaborations with two very high level researches centres, the Visual Attention Lab, Harvard University and the Perceptual Motor Control Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The project aims uncovering in which situations an implicit or an explicit strategy is more favourable. Furthermore, it also aims to uncover if after adopting an implicit learning strategy, the visual and the motor performance degrade less under pressure conditions. The project is not restricted to academic ambitions, but also aspire to practical applications of the results. (AU)