{"id":8479,"date":"2019-05-22T16:08:09","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/motor_skill\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:08:09","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:08:09","slug":"motor_skill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/motor_skill\/","title":{"rendered":"Motor skill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The accuracy, precision and economy of performance of a specific movement pattern relative to a particular task. &nbsp;A well-established classification for such movement patterns is that between open and closed skills, first introduced by E. Christopher Poulton in his monograph <span class=\"\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">Anticipation open and closed sensorimotor skills<\/span>. Cambridge: Medical Research Council, 1950. &nbsp;It was later applied to sports situations by Barbara Knapp in her book <span class=\"\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">Skill in sport: the attainment of proficiency<\/span>. London: Routledge &amp; Kegan Paul, 1967. &nbsp;A closed skill is an action with a clear beginning and end in which the environmental context is relatively stable and predictable, and thus the action shows little change from trial to trial. &nbsp;Examples include a penalty shot in basketball and the action of a shot-put. &nbsp;An open skill in performed in a constantly changing environment that requires the action to be continually adjusted. &nbsp;Examples include a pass in basketball, hockey or soccer. &nbsp;In essence, the distinction is a continuum concerned with environmental effects on performance. &nbsp;Then there is the one-dimension versus the more complex <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sQ8nTrd98yg\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sQ8nTrd98yg?target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">two-dimension taxonomy of motor skills<\/a> devised by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tc.columbia.edu\/academics\/?facid=ag239\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.tc.columbia.edu\/academics\/?facid=ag239?target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Antoinette Gentile<\/a> in her paper A working model of skill acquisition with application to teaching. <span class=\"\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">Quest<\/span>, 1972, <span class=\"\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">17<\/span>, 3-23. &nbsp;The former is the closed-open skills continuum of these two extremes or that of discrete (e.g., punch in boxing) to continuous (e.g., walking) actions. &nbsp;The two-dimensions refers to the function of an action and whether it requires two things (e.g., manipulating an object and moving the position of the body. &nbsp;Given that skill acquisition involves a long process of learning, it not appropriate to apply it to the movements and actions of young infants. &nbsp;The term (motor) ability is more appropriate in this instance. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"action\">Action<\/a>, <a href=\"baldwin_effect\">Baldwin effect<\/a>, <a href=\"fine_motor_abilities\">Fine motor abilities<\/a>, <a href=\"fundamental_movement_patterns\">Fundamental movement patterns<\/a>, <a href=\"gross_motor_abilities\">Gross motor abilities<\/a>, <a href=\"motor_ability\">Motor ability<\/a>, <a href=\"motor_development\">Motor development<\/a>, <a href=\"motor_milestone\">Motor milestone<\/a>, <a href=\"movement\">Movement<\/a>, Movement coordination, <a href=\"pattern\">Pattern<\/a>, <a href=\"perception-action_coupling\">Perception-action coupling<\/a>, Skill (general) <\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The accuracy, precision and economy of performance of a specific movement pattern relative to a particular task. &nbsp;A well-established classification for such movement patterns is that between open and closed skills, first introduced by E. Christopher Poulton in his monograph Anticipation open and closed sensorimotor skills. Cambridge: Medical Research Council, 1950. &nbsp;It was later applied &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/motor_skill\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Motor skill&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}