Speaker: Brad D. Hatfield, Professor and Chair, Department of Kinesiology, School of Public Health
Date: February 4th, 12-1pm
Room: LeFrak Hall Room 0135
Title: "Assessment of Cognitive Load - The Brain at Work During Human Performance"
Abstract:
Expert human motor performance is characterized by neural efficiency of brain processes, which develops over time with practice. This phenomenon is ultimately expressed as automaticity. In order to address this phenomenon the aim of this study was to determine the relationship between motor skill and attentional reserve. Participants practiced a reaching task with the dominant upper extremity, to which a distortion of the visual feedback was applied, while a control group performed the same task without distortion. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs), elicited by auditory stimuli were recorded throughout practice. Performance, as measured by initial directional error, was initially worse relative to controls and improved over trials. Analyses of the ERPs revealed that exogenous components, N1 and P2, were undifferentiated between the groups and did not change with practice. Notably, amplitude of the novelty P3 component, an index of the involuntary orienting of attention, was initially attenuated relative to controls, but progressively increased in amplitude over trials in the learning group only. The results provide psychophysiological evidence that attentional reserve increases as a function of motor skill acquisition. In this manner, attention resources are increasingly available to the performer providing increased opportunity for multi-tasking and adaptive responses to “surprise” or unexpected events. Speculation will be made as to how the measurement approach described is applicable to the estimation of cognitive change as a function of brain injury such as concussion.
