Abstract

GONCALVES, Wesley R. et al. The contextual interference effect in elderly people . Rev. Port. Cien. Desp. [online]. 2007, vol.7, n.2, pp.217-224. ISSN 1645-0523.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contextual interference effect (CIE) in the acquisition of motor skills in elderly people. A manual positioning task was used, it was characterized by the transport of three tennis ball in a movement sequence and predetermined target times. The experiment consisted of  4 phases: 1) acquisition, 2) transfer 1 (T1), 3) transfer 2 (T2) and 4) retention of the acquisition. The subjects were randomly distributed into four groups: random-random group (R-R), which performed the tasks in a random order in the acquisition and retention; random-blocked group (R-B), which performed the acquisition in a random order and the retention in a blocked order; blocked-blocked group (B-B), which performed the tasks in a blocked order in the acquisition and retention; blocked-random group (B-R), which performed the acquisition in a blocked order and the retention in a random order.  The results showed that one of the random groups was more variable during the acquisition compared to the both blocked groups. However, this random group, in the first block of the retention was more precise than one of the blocked groups. These results partially confirm the CIE in elderly people.

Keywords : motor learning; structure of practice; contextual interference.

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