Implicit movement learning

Project management: Claudia Classen & Prof. Dr. Armin Kibele

This project investigates the question of whether movement learning can be understood as a special case of implicit learning. Based on various research approaches in movement science, which repeatedly refer to implicit learning processes, an integrative theory of (implicit) movement learning was developed, which includes components of traditional program theories as well as aspects of more recent action theories and, as a completely new element, establishes a substantive proximity to implicit learning. According to this theory, the motor adaptations that form the basis of exercise-related and lasting skill acquisition occur unconsciously. Conscious representations of the newly acquired movement skill can be built up in parallel, but they do not have to be. In the three sub-studies with four experiments conducted on this topic, the research method, the framework conditions and the effects of implicit learning of a vertical jump with lunge were examined. The test subjects were asked to optimize movement characteristics without knowing how many or which movement characteristics were relevant and to what extent. The results suggest that implicit movement learning can also take place without knowledge of an underlying regularity and that this learning produces more stable effects than learning the movement with explicit knowledge of the required characteristics. Experimental findings are still pending for the question of whether implicit learning can also take place in complex visual stimulus environments. To this end, reaction time experiments are being carried out on the computer using special software for implicit learning (SIMPLE suite) in order to test whether implicit identification of various stimulus features leads to shorter reaction times after a longer learning phase.

Publications:

• Kibele, A. (2001): Unconscious information processing ? a topic for sports science?! Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
• Kibele, A. (2001): Implicit movement learning. Spectrum of Sport Science 13, 7-26.
• Kibele, A. (2003). Implicit learning. H. Mechling & J. Munzert (Eds.): Handbuch Bewegungswissenschaft ? Bewegungslehre (pp. 243-261). Schorndorf: Hofmann.