How Do We Learn Skilled Movements?

Abstract

All athletes were novices at one point in their lives, even Olympic gold medalists and world champions. They committed years of practice to become competitive and even longer to become elite performers. This transformation from novice to expert requires motor learning, which is the process of acquiring and refining motor (movement) skills. Inspired by the observation that motor skills evolve from being effortful to effortless, psychologists have divided motor learning into three separate stages: the cognitive stage, in which we gather information about the actions needed to perform a skill; the associative stage, in which we refine our movements; and the autonomous stage, in which our movements become smooth and automatic. Here, we will explore how a fictional young athlete, Amy, progresses through these three stages and uses different parts of her brain to make the transition from novice to expert.