Re:Practice makes perfect
by ilitirit on Wednesday May 27, 2009 @08:39AM
(#628372)
Depends on what you're practicing.
Contrary to conventional wisdom that movement variability is caused by muscle activity, Churchland's team found that neural activity accounts for about half the variations. In other words, training muscles to perform a certain way through practice, such as countless hours teeing off or shooting a basketball, will not produce the same shot every time because the brain's behaviour is inconsistent.
After an initial training period, the monkeys' reach accuracy did not improve over time, suggesting that lots of practice can only improve movement control so much, says team member Krishna Shenoy.
Contrary to conventional wisdom that movement variability is caused by muscle activity, Churchland's team found that neural activity accounts for about half the variations. In other words, training muscles to perform a certain way through practice, such as countless hours teeing off or shooting a basketball, will not produce the same shot every time because the brain's behaviour is inconsistent.
After an initial training period, the monkeys' reach accuracy did not improve over time, suggesting that lots of practice can only improve movement control so much, says team member Krishna Shenoy.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10844-practice-may-not...