Should Common Optimal Movement Patterns Be Identified as the Criterion to Be Achieved?

Recently, a new paradigm has been proposed for the study of knowledge of performance (Schmidt & Young, 1991). In this paradigm, the experimenters identified an optimal kinematic movement pattern, based on the performance of a best subject, which was imposed on all subjects as the criterion to achieve. This approach, which assumes that this pattern is the best way for all subjects to do the task, was tested in the present experiment. In Experiment 1, a common optimal movement pattern could not be identified by an analysis of scatterplot graphs of the scores plotted as a function of various kinematic vanables or by correlating (within and across subjects [N = 14]) each kinematic variable with the score. In Experiment 2, subjects (N = 12) were retrained in 2 separate sessions, during which they tried to reproduce either a personal best or the best subject's template. Results indicated that scores were similar regardless of the template pattern being used. During training, however, subjects who used their personal template had a lower incidence of zero scores and were more consistent than those who used the template of the best subject. This provided a second line of evidence against the assumption that a common optimal movement pattern exists for this type of task.