H. Sekiya et al., THE CONTEXTUAL INTERFERENCE EFFECT IN PARAMETER MODIFICATIONS OF THE SAME GENERALIZED MOTOR PROGRAM, Research quarterly for exercise and sport, 67(1), 1996, pp. 59-68
This study extended previous work (Sekiya, Magill, Sidaway, & Anderson
, 1994) by examining whether the contextual interference (CI) effect c
ould be found when task variations were controlled by the same general
ized motor program (GMP) but differentiated on the basis of overall fo
rce parameter modifications. A subsidiary aim of this study was to det
ermine how the amount of practice influenced the CI effect. During 2 a
cquisition sessions and 2 retention sessions, participants (N=24) perf
ormed 3 task variations in either a blocked (low CI) or serial (high C
I) condition. The task variations shared the same relative force struc
tures but differed in the amount of overall force that had to be produ
ced. Analysis of a general error measure revealed a strong CI effect,
indicating that overall force parameter modifications of the same GMP
created the CI effect. Analyses of various dependent measures, which d
issociated GMP from parameter components with regard to force characte
ristics, revealed that parameter learning but not GMP learning, was en
hanced by high CI practice. No CI effect occurred in any aspect of tim
ing characteristics. The amount of practice used in the present study
did not influence the efficacy of the CI effect.