Brown, Liana

Positive coaching techniques are gaining prominence in the sport of Gymnastics. Coaches are focusing on positive reinforcement, encouragement, and constructive feedback rather than relying solely on traditional, more authoritarian coaching methods. Furthermore, technology is being used to enhance coach-athlete relationships. Video analysis tools and performance tracking software allow for more detailed feedback and communication between coaches and gymnasts. Previous research has shown that sensory feedback, and physical cues and guidance impact both motor learning and motor skill performance. Spotting is a form of physical guidance (touch) that may be used by gymnastics coaches during both the learning phase of a skill and during performance, even after mastery. This research has examined whether and how spotting with touch influences the athlete's skill performance and confidence. The current study explored how spotting affects both skill performance and self-confidence of participants as they performed a basic skill (a backward jump onto a specified target) they have already mastered. We asked Intermediate-level gymnasts to perform a backward jump from height under two levels of landing difficulty, while being spotted with and without touch. Their confidence was measured in each condition using a brief survey. The timing, accuracy and precision of their landing was measured from video recordings of their performance. We evaluated the relationship between touch and skill performance to determine if it is affected by athlete self-confidence. It was hypothesized that physical guidance in the form of spot with touch would improve the accuracy and precision of the jump landing and that athletes would report higher levels of self-confidence in the touch versus no touch condition. We found no significant differences in skill performance and landing stability as assessed by rate of force development and peak force. We found that participants reported significantly higher levels of self-confidence when receiving spot with touch in the easy landing condition.

Author Keywords: gymnastics, physical guidance, self-confidence, skill performance, spotting, touch

Ego-depletion refers to the observation that using self-control at Time 1 (T1) in the sequential-task paradigm leads to worse self-control at Time 2 (T2; Baumeister et al., 1998). Self-control is often manipulated by varying the difficulty of the task used at T1. Recently, Wolff and colleagues (2020) suggested that failures to replicate the ego-depletion phenomenon may arise because simple tasks may be boring, therefore requiring self-control to maintain attention on the task. Three experiments (Experiment 1, N=60; Experiment 2, N=61; Experiment 3, N=59) are reported that examined whether boredom at T1 predicted self-control at T2. A simple Go/No-Go task was used at T1. The ratio of Go to No-Go trials was changed across experiments to explore how the properties of the boring task impacted the association between boredom and self-control. When responding was frequent, increased boredom at T1 was associated with fewer anagrams correctly solved (Experiment 1 and 3), and more self-reported fatigue at T2 (Experiment 1), consistent with boredom leading to ego-depletion. However, when responding was infrequent (Experiment 2), increased boredom at T1 was associated with more correctly solved anagrams at T2, suggesting that the properties of a boring task change the psychological outcome that task has on self-control.

Author Keywords: attention, boredom, ego-depletion, executive function, self-control

Damage to the hippocampus (HPC) typically causes retrograde amnesia for contextual fear conditioning. Reinstating the conditioning over several sessions, however, can mitigate the retrograde amnesic effects. Reinstatements, thus, establish a sufficiently strong memory in non-HPC systems to no longer require the HPC for expression, meaning that it has become HPC independent. This thesis aimed to determine the structures comprising the non-HPC system supporting reinstated context fear memory. The contribution of the perirhinal cortex (PRH) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were examined because of their established role in context memory. Initially, it was demonstrated that HPC damage indeed causes retrograde amnesia for single session, but not reinstated, contextual fear conditioning. Then, it was demonstrated that combined HPC and PRH damage causes retrograde amnesia for reinstated contextual fear conditioning, whereas combined HPC and ACC damage had lesser effects. Therefore, the PRH is a key structure within the non-HPC memory system for reinstated context fear memory.

Author Keywords: anterior cingulate cortex, contextual fear conditioning, hippocampus, memory, perirhinal cortex, retrograde amnesia

The literature to date that investigates the development of social perspective taking in children primarily focuses on preschool aged children. These studies provide evidence that implicates language as being crucial for social perspective taking in young children but less is known about the importance of language to social perspective taking during middle childhood and early adolescence. The current study uses Selman's theory of socio-cognitive development to investigate the maturation of social perspective taking and the importance of language to social problem solving in 8 year olds (n = 111) and 12 year olds (n = 112). Analysis of variance and scalogram analysis shows a developmental progression of social perspective taking across the social problem solving process. Children may be able to demonstrate reciprocal perspective taking when generating strategies before they are able to demonstrate reciprocal perspective taking for other steps of social problem solving. Flexibility in interpersonal orientation is shown to be a predictor of social problem solving ability. Correlations and multiple regression analysis demonstrate that language is important to overall social problem solving but that the role of semantic and syntactic language may differ at age 8 compared to age 12.

Author Keywords: interpersonal orientation, language, Selman, social cognition, social perspective taking, social problem solving

Near-hand benefits are seen when individuals are able to process targets more quickly, accurately, and with greater precision when a hand is placed near, rather than far from a target. One possibility is that near-hand stimuli recruit visual-tactile bimodal cells. Research reports that placing a hand near a target delayed immediate saccade onset and speeded delayed saccade onset. Study 1 examined saccade onset to targets appearing near a real hand, a realistic fake hand, or a non-hand visual cue. Immediate saccades were facilitated and delayed saccades were slowed with a real hand in the display, in comparison to a fake hand and no-hand. To establish the link between near-hand effects and bimodal cells, Study 2 used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to depress cortical activity in PMd. RTMS did not induce a reversal of interference induced by near-hand, congruent targets. However, a reversal of the hand effect was found in the stimulation group; a real hand in the display may delay immediate saccades and improve delayed saccades post-stimulation. This finding may double dissociate the effect of the real hand from the fake hand and may be inconsistent with the hypothesis that the hand is attracting attention.

Author Keywords: multisensory integration, near-hand effects, PMd, premotor cortex, rTMS, visual-tactile bimodal neurons

While there is substantial research on the influence of adverse childhood experiences on sexual offending behaviours and attachment representations on sexual offending behaviours, few studies to date have explored how adverse childhood experiences and attachment representations act together to influence the development of rape attitudes in a non-clinical population. The purpose of this thesis was to explore how childhood experiences and attachment may help to understand the development of rape attitudes. Data were collected from 273 undergraduate students who completed self-report questionnaires pertaining to their attachment, childhood experiences and rape attitudes. Correlational and Structural Equation analyses were computed, and the results did not find support for the simultaneous influence of adverse childhood experiences and attachment representations on rape attitudes. Given that the sample was primarily female (83%), the results indicate that the outcomes of adverse childhood experiences on sexual attitudes may differ by gender. Understanding the formation of rape attitudes is important to understand the motivations behind sexual assault behaviours.

Author Keywords: adverse childhood experiences, rape attitudes

Aging is associated with a multitude of changes, including changes in the motor system. One such change that has been documented is increased levels of inherent movement variability (the inability to consistently replicate movements over time) with increasing age. Previous research has had controversial findings regarding the effect that movement variability has on motor learning and motor adaptation. Some research suggests that movement variability is beneficial to motor learning, while other research indicates that movement variability is the by-product of a noisy motor system and is a detriment to learning new skills. How do changes in movement variability associated with aging affect the ability to adapt to a mass perturbation? We tested younger and older individuals on a mass adaptation task (applying mass to the lateral side of the arm to perturb inertial forces of the limb during reaches). We analyzed baseline levels of movement variability, learning during the adaptation block and how baseline levels of movement variability explained differences in learning. We focused on measures of accuracy, speed and precision. We found that younger individuals displayed greater levels of movement variability throughout the experiment and that they also learned to adapt to the mass perturbation more successfully than their older counterparts. Multi-joint movements displayed greater degrees of learning in comparison to single-joint movements, likely due to the difference in difficulty when completing the two movements. Taken together, our results suggest that purposeful movement variability may be beneficial to motor adaptation.

Author Keywords: aging, mass adaptation, motor adaptation, motor learning, movement variability