Carrie Peters does the double and wins Best student Presentation at RIO
Carrie Peters does the double and wins another award, this time, best student presentation award at RIO (Researchers in IMagery and Observation) conference, at UC Louvain, Brussels, Belgium. Congrats Carrie. Here presentation was titled:
"Swing and a miss: Testing observation-induced prediction errors in golf putting"
Watching others act can cause unintentional changes in the observer’s performance. Observing correct actions leads to performance biases in the same direction as the actor’s and observing errors leads to compensatory behaviour. A provocative idea is that “prediction errors” (PEs) are generated when the watched movement is different than expected, updating the observer’s internal model and causing compensation. PEs in observation are also thought to support learning when watching errors. To test how observation-induced PEs impact on control and learning, we used a golf putting task where participants watched videos of an actor putting to a 3 x 3 grid, then putted without feedback. The videos showed putts to different grid areas, with instructions about the actor’s goal to elicit or suppress PEs. To replicate and test the mechanisms of this effect, we tested experienced golfers (N=23) across conditions that covaried the actor’s putt location and the presence of a PE (golfers always putted centre). Imitative biases occurred after watching ‘correct’ corner putts but not assumed ‘error’ corner putts (p=.04). Descriptively, compensation only occurred when PE conditions were completed second (p=.07). To test PEs in learning, novices (N=102) practiced and watched correct (noPE) or error (PE) corner putts or correct centre putts (control), and returned for retention and transfer tests. Watching corner putts generally led to higher errors in practice (p=.02), but with no evidence of directional biases (ps>.10). Moreover, there were no differences between the groups in retention.Watching errors in practice resulted in increased consistency of no-vision transfer putts (p<.01), with no benefits to the practiced target. These studies show only weak evidence that PEs in observation drive changes in performance and learning; questioning mechanisms of error adaptation following observation.
