TITLE:
Contextual Interference Effect Depends on the Amount of Time Separating Acquisition and Testing
AUTHORS:
Jefferson John dos Santos, Flavio Henrique Bastos, Thiago de Oliveira Souza, Umberto Cesar Corrêa
KEYWORDS:
Motor Learning; Practice Schedule; Dart Throwing, Retention Test
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Physical Education,
Vol.4 No.2,
May
15,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Considering the
critical role permanence has on predictions related to the contextual
interference effect, this study sought to determine whether the manifestation
of the effect depends on the time interval separating the acquisition phase
(AQ) from the retention test (RT). Four groups of blocked (BL) and four groups
of random practice (RD) performed 90 trials of a dart throwing task (AQ) and
were tested exclusively after 10 minutes (BL10 and RD10), 24 hours (BL24 and
RD24), 7 days (BL7 and RD7) or 30 days (BL30 and RD30). In the AQ, blocked
groups performed three blocks of trials, with each block consisting of throwing
the darts from one of three distances (2 m, 2.6 m and 3.2 m). For the random
groups, the trial order was pseudo-randomized. The results indicated superior
performance of RD24, compared to BL24, but no difference was found between the
groups tested after 10 minutes, 7 days or 30 days. Thus, our results do not
support the notion that higher contextual interference promotes immediate
learning benefits nor long-term retention of internal representations.
Nevertheless, future research should further investigate the processes
underlying the contextual interference effect, since short-term gains (24 h)
were found.