Jae Patterson

Research

My specific research questions are designed to examine the various factors facilitating motor skill acquisition across the lifespan. Such general topics include knowledge of results, repetition scheduling and the modulating effects of motor task complexity.

Current areas of inquiry are:

1. Identifying and understanding the mechanisms facilitating the learning advantages of performers provided the opportunity to individualize their motor skill acquisition context;

2. Understanding the role and associated mechanisms of practice contexts facilitating the cognitive processes of the learner, considered cognitively effortful;

3. Identifying and understanding how the processes of aging interact with the structure of a practice context to either facilitate or compromise the learning of the older adult;

4. Examining a physiological index (e.g. heart rate variability) for inferring cognitive effort from practice contexts, differing as a function of demands placed on the performers’ information processing during motor skill acquisition and retention.