PDFE # 3

Bethani Spraggins

Motor Learning

Dr. Epling

September 20, 2010

PDFE # 3

            The event that I observed for the Professional Development/Field Experience assignment # 3: Movement Preparation was the University of Georgia versus Arkansas football game. The football game was played on Saturday, September 18, 2010 and was aired on ESPN at 12:00. The football game had several examples of each of the movement preparation classifications.      Reaction times are lags between the initial stimuli and the actual movement; these lags can be of varying lengths. An example of reaction time in the UGA versus Arkansas game was when the quarter back, Aaron Murray had to throw a pass to Kris Durham. The defender was closely covering him and Murray saw that Durham was open and threw the ball to him. The reaction time was very quick and it allowed Durham to receive the ball.

            Hick’s Law states that with the increase of stimuli, the time of the reaction slows down. An example of a time when there was only one stimulus was when the quarterback receives the ball from the center and the defensive tackle only had one option, and that was to tackle the quarter back. An example where there were multiple stimuli was when Kris Durham was trying to get open to receive the ball and has the option of running one of fifteen different routes. The defender has fifteen different possibilities that could happen and he must react to which ever takes place.

            Psychological Refractory Period is the delay between the reaction of a first stimulus and a second stimulus within a brief time period. This example happened during the first quarter, when the first touchdown scored during the game by Arkansas. The quarterback Ryan Mallett was given the ball by the center and he acted like he was handing the ball off to the running back, when in reality he had the ball behind his back. This caused the entire defense to react as if it was a run play, and this left an open area for Mallett to throw the ball to the wide receiver that was left wide open. The defense then must react to the second stimuli and this reaction happens much slower than the first.

            Anticipation is predicting what will happen and when it will happen. There can be both accurate and inaccurate anticipation. There are both positive outcomes for correctly anticipating a reaction and there are also negative outcomes for an inaccurate anticipation reaction. An example of an accurate anticipation is when the Georgia offense anticipated accurately the Arkansas blitz. They accurately anticipated and picked up the blitz allowing the quarter back to complete the pass to the wide receiver. The inaccurate anticipation example is when Georgia incorrectly anticipated the blitz and Aaron Murray got sacked.