THE INFLUENCE OF SKILL IN GYMNASTICS AND VISION ON DYNAMIC BALANCE

In this study, the Authors examined the importance of vision in dynami c balance at different stages of learning. Nine expert and 9 novice gy mnasts were required to cross a balance beam as quickly as possible wi th full vision, with no vision and with vision placed 15 degrees to th e right and left. Expert gymnasts performed equally well in the full v ision and no vision situation, but their performance deteriorated when vision was displaced. Form errors were more pronounced in all three o f the visually-degraded conditions. Novice gymnasts were adversely aff ected by both the elimination of vision and displacement. This was tru e for both the movement time and the form errors. These findings creat e problems for models of motor learning that posit a progression from closed-loop to open-loop control.