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POST‐REST UPSWING AND DOWNSWING IN PURSUIT ROTOR LEARNING AFTER DISTRIBUTED PRACTICE AS A FUNCTION OF LENGTH OF PRACTICE
Author(s) -
EYSENCK H. J.,
ISELER A.,
STAR K.,
WILLETT R. A.
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1969.tb01210.x
Subject(s) - rest (music) , psychology , function (biology) , duration (music) , phenomenon , period (music) , cognitive psychology , social psychology , epistemology , physics , philosophy , evolutionary biology , acoustics , biology
An experiment is reported to investigate some determinants of post‐rest upswing (PRU; ‘warm up’) and post‐rest downswing (PRD) in pursuit rotor learning. Seven groups of subjects were tested under high drive conditions, and another seven under low drive conditions; all were given five periods of practice (either 20, 30, 40, 60, 80 100, or 120 sec.), separated by 1 min. rest periods. Finally all groups were given 15 min. of massed practice, preceded by a 1 min. rest period. Practice periods were kept short in order to make possible a micro‐genetic investigation of the very beginning of PRU; it is known that this occurs strongly with longer periods, but it seemed of interest to observe the phenomenon during an earlier stage of growth. Theories regarding both PRU and PRD had been put forward by Ammons and Eysenck; it was hoped that the experiment would confirm or disconfirm predictions made from these theories. Results on the whole were more in line with the more recent theories, but neither theory was able to account for all the observed results. Thus while the Eysenck theory could account for the fact that amount of PRD during the massed practice was a function of the length of pre‐test practice, duration of PRD was not; this effect was not predicted. Other findings were that PRD increases over successive trials, and that longer practice periods produce more PRU. Drive was found to interact with other variables.