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Tenenbaum, G., Kohler, N., Shraga, S., Liebermann, D. G., & Lidor, R. (1996). Anticipation and confidence of decisions related to skilled performance. Journal of Sport Psychology, 27, 293–307.
Abstract: This study was carried out to examine anticipatory decisions of novice, intermediate, and expert tennis players and the confidence with which these decisions are made by these athletes. Perceived eye-focus was also measured to verify whether it is related to expertise level prior to action execution. Forty-five Australian players, 15 in each skill category, were exposed to 6 temporal occluded film conditions (480, 320, 160 ms prior to racquet-ball contact, at contact, and 160 and 320 ms after contact) in randomized order within 8 tennis strokes. In each condition, after viewing the filmed sequence, they were asked to report the final ball location of the opponent's stroke, how confident they were in this decision, and their perceived eye-focus location during the sequence. Experts and intermediates were superior in anticipatory decisions to their counterparts, only under short exposure durations. Novices showed more confidence than experts and intermediates at the beginning of the sequence, but after 160 and 320 ms of ball-racquet contact, experts were much more confident than novices, and intermediates. Self-reported eye-focus differed substantially with respect to expertise level. While experts attended to several locations prior to ball-racquet contact, intermediate and novice players gazed at one location. After contact, the reverse was evident. The findings are in partial agreement with other studies which have applied the temporal occlusion paradigm to study expert-novice differences in anticipatory skills.
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Falk, B., Eliakim, A., Dotan, R., Liebermann, D. G., Regev, R., & Bar-Or, O. (1997). Birth weight and physical ability in 5- to 8-yr-old healthy children born prematurely. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 29(9), 1124–1130.
Abstract: Recent advances in perinatal care have resulted in increased survival rates of extremely small and immature newborns. This has resulted in some neurodevelopmental impairment. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively evaluate and compare neuromuscular performance in children born prematurely at various levels of subnormal birth weight (BW). Subjects were 5- to 8-yr-old children born prematurely at different levels of subnormal BW (535-1760 g, N = 22, PM), and age-matched controls born at full term (> 2500 g, N = 15, CON). None of the subjects had any clinically defined neuromuscular disabilities. Body mass (BM) of PM was lower than that of CON (18.3 +/- 2.7 vs 21.7 +/- 3.8 kg) with no difference in height or sum of 4 skinfolds. Peak mechanical power output determined with a 15-s modified Wingate Anaerobic Test and corrected for BM was lower (P = 0.07) in PM than in CON (5.11 +/- 1.07 vs 5.94 +/- 1.00 W.kg-1). This was especially noticeable in children born at extremely low BW (ELBW, < 1000 g, 4.49 +/- 1.04 W.kg-1, P < 0.01). Peak power, determined in a force-plate vertical jump, corrected for BM was lower in PM vs CON (25.5 +/- 5.4 vs 30.8 +/- 5.2 W.kg-1, respectively P = 0.01), especially in the ELBW group (20.0 +/- 5.5 W.kg-1). Similarly, the elapsed time between peak velocity and actual jump take-off was longer in PM than in CON (41.2 +/- 9.4 vs 35.8 +/- 5.8 ms, respectively, P = 0.04). No differences were observed in peak force. The results suggest that performance deficiencies of prematurely-born children may be a result of inferior inter-muscular coordination. The precise neuromotor factors responsible for this should be identified by future research.
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Liebermann, D. G., & Issurin V. (1997). Effects of vibratory stimulation on the perception of effort during isotonic contractions. Journal of Human Movement Studies, 32, 171–186.
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Davidowitz, I., Parmet, Y., Frenkel-Toledo, S., Banina, M. C., Soroker, N., Solomon, J. M., et al. (2019). Relationship Between Spasticity and Upper-Limb Movement Disorders in Individuals With Subacute Stroke Using Stochastic Spatiotemporal Modeling. Neurorehabil Neural Repair, 33(2), 141–152.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Spasticity is common in patients with stroke, yet current quantification methods are insufficient for determining the relationship between spasticity and voluntary movement deficits. This is partly a result of the effects of spasticity on spatiotemporal characteristics of movement and the variability of voluntary movement. These can be captured by Gaussian mixture models (GMMs). OBJECTIVES: To determine the influence of spasticity on upper-limb voluntary motion, as assessed by the bidirectional Kullback-Liebler divergence (BKLD) between motion GMMs. METHODS: A total of 16 individuals with subacute stroke and 13 healthy aged-equivalent controls reached to grasp 4 targets (near-center, contralateral, far-center, and ipsilateral). Two-dimensional GMMs (angle and time) were estimated for elbow extension motion. BKLD was computed for each individual and target, within the control group and between the control and stroke groups. Movement time, final elbow angle, average elbow velocity, and velocity smoothness were computed. RESULTS: Between-group BKLDs were much larger than within control-group BKLDs. Between-group BKLDs for the near-center target were lower than those for the far-center and contralateral targets, but similar to that for the ipsilateral target. For those with stroke, the final angle was lower for the near-center target, and the average velocity was higher. Velocity smoothness was lower for the near-center than for the ipsilateral target. Elbow flexor and extensor passive muscle resistance (Modified Ashworth Scale) strongly explained BKLD values. CONCLUSIONS: Results support the view that individuals with poststroke spasticity have a velocity-dependent reduction in active elbow joint range and that BKLD can be used as an objective measure of the effects of spasticity on reaching kinematics.
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Liebermann, D. G., & Goodman, D. (1991). Effects of visual guidance on the reduction of impacts during landings. Ergonomics, 34(11), 1399–1406.
Abstract: While a common view is that vision is essential to motor performance, some recent studies have shown that continuous visual guidance may not always be required within certain time constraints. This study investigated a landing-related task (self-released falls) to assess the extent to which visual information enhances the ability to reduce the impacts at touchdown. Six individuals performed six blocked trials from four height categories in semi-counterbalanced order (5-10, 20-25, 60-65, and 90-95 cm) in vision and no-vision conditions randomly assigned. A series of two-way ANOVA with repeated measures were carried out separately on each dependent variable collapsed over six trials. The results indicated that vision during the flight did not produce softer landings. Indeed, in analysing the first peak (PFP) a main effect for visual condition was revealed in that the mean amplitude was slightly higher when vision was available (F(1,5) = 6.57; p less than 0.05), thus implicating higher forces at impact. The results obtained when the time to the first peak (TFP) was applied showed no significant differences between conditions (F(1,5) less than 1). As expected, in all cases, the analyses yielded significant main effects for the height categories factor. It appears that during self-initiated falls in which the environmental cues are known before the event, visual guidance is not necessary in order to adopt a softer landing strategy.
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