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ALIAS |
Analyzing learning, interaction, and automatization in speed stacking
- Supervisor(s): Elena Carbone, Hendrik Koesling , Thomas Hermann, Bettina Blaesing, Werner X. Schneider
- Project Member(s): Rebecca M. Foerster
Research Area: B D
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Abstract
Based on the ‘natural task’ approach and on basic attention research, ALIAS investigates visual selection processes in the bimanual, high-speed, sensorimotor task of speed stacking. The project asks how saccadic eye movement control (where-to-look-next?) changes during learning and which new characteristics arise at the level of international championship. Results point to the possibility that automatization leads to an increasing degree of long-term memory based control of attentional selection.
Research Questions and Methods
Humans move their eyes via saccades to informative locations of the environment while performing natural tasks. Researchers have intensively investigated eye movements and their characteristics in natural tasks. However, few studies addressed the development of attention control in such well-learned tasks.
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Outcomes
The comparison of eye movement patterns in the beginning of the learning process and after automatization reveals that the eyes lead the hands with a shorter delay and that fewer fixations are made with increasing automatization. In addition, international champions made even fewer fixations than trained students, while fixation duration and fixation rate did not differ. At the same time, all participants looked at task-relevant locations in a similar order across training days. Results indicate that sequences of saccades are transferred to long-term memory (LTM) during learning and are retrieved from LTM after automatization. In support of this assumption, the comparison between normal vision and darkness revealed lower fixation rates and longer fixation durations in the dark, while scanpaths and eye-hand dynamics were very similar between illumination conditions. A further study has revealed that a well-learned speed-stacking task recruits spatial working-memory resources even after automatization. In sum, results point to a gradual transition from a more sensory-based to a more long-term memory-based visual selection during learning and automatization of a high-speed sensorimotor task.
Media
"Hochstapelei im Dienste der Wissenschaft - Rebecca Förster erforscht Bewegungs-Automatisierung", von Sabine Schulze, Westfalen-Blatt Nr. 229.pdf"Fliegende Becher - Rebecca Förster schreibt ihre Doktorarbeit über das Speedstacking", von Hendrik Uffmann, Westfalen-Blatt Nr. 133.pdf
"Speed stacken - wie lernen wir?", von Melanie Heßler, WDR5_Leonardo.mp3
Publications
Saccadic eye movements in the dark while performing an automatized sequential high-speed sensorimotor task
Journal of Vision 12(2): 1 - 15.
Center of Excellence - Cognitive Interaction Technology CITEC
Saccades during object-related everyday tasks select visual information to guide hand movements. Nevertheless, humans can perform such a task in the dark provided it was automatized beforehand. It is largely unknown whether and how saccades are executed in this case. Recently, a long-term memory (LTM)-based direct control mode of attention during the execution of well-learned sensorimotor tasks, which predicts task-relevant saccades in the dark, was proposed (R. M. Foerster, E. Carbone, H. Koesling, & W. X. Schneider, 2011). In the present study, participants performed an automatized speed-stacking task in the dark and in the light while their eye movements were recorded. Speed stacking is a sequential high-speed sensorimotor object manipulation task. Results demonstrated that participants indeed made systematic eye movements in the dark. Saccadic scan paths and the number of fixations were highly similar across illumination conditions, while fixation rates were lower and fixation durations were longer in the dark. Importantly, the eye reached a location ahead of the hands even in the dark. Finally, neither eye–hand dynamics nor saccade accuracy correlated with hand movement durations in the dark. Results support the hypothesis of an LTM-based mode of attention selection during the execution of automatized sequential high-speed sensorimotor tasks.
Eye movement control during a bimanual, high-speed sensorimotor task: From expertise to championship
In: Perception. 40. Toulouse: Pion: 57.
Fakultät für Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft
Abteilung für Psychologie
Eye movements of experts and champions in a high-speed sensorimotor task in the dark: Evidence for LTM driven saccades
In: Journal of Eye Movement Research. 43. Marseille: 114.
Fakultät für Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft
Center of Excellence - Cognitive Interaction Technology CITEC
Abteilung für Psychologie
Eye movements during and after automatization of a high-speed stacking task: From sensory-based to memory-based saccadic programming
In: Journal of Vision. 1111. Naples: ARVO.
Center of Excellence - Cognitive Interaction Technology CITEC
Fakultät für Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft
Abteilung für Psychologie
Saccadic eye movements in a high-speed bimanual stacking task: Changes of attentional control during learning and automatization
Journal of Vision 11(7): 1 - 16.
Abteilung für Psychologie
Fakultät für Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft
Center of Excellence - Cognitive Interaction Technology CITEC
Principles of saccadic eye movement control in the real world have been derived by the study of self-paced well-known tasks such as sandwich or tea making. Little is known whether these principles generalize to high-speed sensorimotor tasks and how they are affected by learning and automatization. In the present study, right-handers practiced the speed-stacking task in 14 consecutive daily training sessions, while their eye movements were recorded. Speed stacking is a high-speed sensorimotor task that requires grasping, moving, rotating, and placing of objects. The following main results emerged. Throughout practice, the eyes led the hands, displayed by a positive eye–hand time span. Moreover, visual information was gathered for the subsequent manual sub-action, displayed by a positive eye–hand unit span. With automatization, the eye–hand time span became shorter, yet it increased when corrected by the decreasing trial duration. In addition, fixations were mainly allocated to the goal positions of the right hand or objects in the right hand. The number of fixations decreased while the fixation rate remained constant. Importantly, all participants fixated on the same task-relevant locations in a similar scan path across training days, revealing a long-term memory-based mode of attention control after automatization of a high-speed sensorimotor task.
Speedstacking ist nicht kostenlos: Der Einfluss einer automatisierten motorischen Tätigkeit auf das verbale und visuell-räumliche Arbeitsgedächtnis
In: Frings C, Mecklinger A, Wentura D, Zimmer H (Eds.); Lengerich: Pabst Science Publishers.
Fakultät für Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft
Center of Excellence - Cognitive Interaction Technology CITEC
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Interactive Intelligent Systems
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