Dynamics of Experience in a Learning Protocol: A Case Study in Climbing.

Area of Science:

• Motor Learning
• Enactive Psychology
• Phenomenology

Background:

• Motor learning is non-linear, self-organized, and situated.
• The enactive paradigm emphasizes lived experience in shaping intentions, actions, and perceptions.
• Analyzing both experience and behavior can explain learning dynamics, like state transitions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the dynamics of a beginner climber's lived experience and climbing fluency during a 5-week learning protocol.
• To investigate how intentions, actions, and perceptions evolve with performance progression.
• To correlate phenomenological data with behavioral performance metrics.

Main Methods:

• A case study involving a beginner climber over 10 sessions (5 weeks).
• Climber navigated a control route (unchanged) and novel variants.
• Phenomenological data from self-confrontation interviews; behavioral data from climbing time, immobility ratio, hip trajectory entropy, and jerk.

Main Results:

• Highlighted distinct dynamics in lived experience and performance for both control and variant routes.
• Identified four crucial episodes in control route dynamics and four ways of experiencing novelty on variants.
• Demonstrated a dynamic interplay between the climber's enacted fluency (intentions, actions, perceptions) and performance.

Conclusions:

• Climber's enacted fluency was defined through intentions, actions, and perceptions, identified via dynamic phenomenological synthesis.
• Learning dynamics were characterized by challenge, metaphor, and refined perceptions.
• The study underscores the value of integrating experiential and behavioral analysis in motor learning research.