Recent golfing performance influences target size perception, regardless of long-term ability (Witt, Linkenauger, Bakdash, & Proffitt, 2008). Better performance was correlated to larger perceived golf hole sizes than poorer performance. The present thesis used falsified feedback for a mini-putting task to help determine the requirements of this effect. Participants in Experiment 1 viewed their true trial-by-trial performance, but after two blocks of trials, was given feedback in the form of comparison to others (i.e. social comparative feedback). Regardless of their true performance, those in the positive feedback group were told they performed better than others, and those in the negative feedback group performed worse. Target size perception was found to correlate with ratings of task difficulty as opposed to radial error. Because this correlation was not found before feedback manipulations were given, it was suggested that trial-by-trial performance was no longer a strong influencer on target size perception. Instead, the perceived difficulty of the task influenced it. The second experiment completely dissociated motor action from performance outcome. Occlusion goggles and a headset that played white noise activated such that participants were not able to view the resulting movement of their golf ball after their putter came into contact with it. The ball was secretly moved to a predetermined location – closer (positive feedback participants), or further (negative feedback participants). Target size estimations increased as the number of errors and difficulty ratings increased. This was contrary to Witt et al.’s (2008) findings. Since various limitations and confounds could be resolved by running these experiments in an open field, it would be valuable to run them again. This thesis sought to contribute to research by taking the first steps to investigating whether the action specific effect is driven by top-down or bottom-up processes. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / When performing well, targets (e.g. baseball, golf hole) are perceived as larger, and vice versa. Using a mini-putting task, this thesis investigated whether it was only true performance that can lead to this effect. In the first experiment, participants compared their own performance to the fake performance reports of others. How difficult they felt the task to be – instead of their own scores - affected their perceived hole size. In the second experiment, their golf balls were either secretly moved closer or further from the target (regardless of their actual scores). It was found that as the number of errors increased, the perceived target size also increased. This contributed to research by showing that comparing performance to others can change what one uses to judge performance, and that when visual results do not reflect ones actions, the bias in perceived target sizes can be eliminated, or reversed.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-20T13:49:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciana Toaldo Gentilini Avila.pdf: 859699 bytes, checksum: 98d467bf80e000b84459635de889b6f8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-22 / The present study investigated the influence of positive social-comparative feedback on the learning of a throwing task in 10-year-old children. Two groups of participants, a positive social-comparative feedback and a control group, received veridical feedback about their performance (accuracy score) after each practice trial. In addition, after each block of 10 trials, the positive social-comparative feedback group was given bogus feedback suggesting that their own performance was better than that of a peer group s on that block. One day after the practice phase, a retention test without (veridical or social-comparative) feedback was performed to assess learning effects as a function of feedback. The positive social-comparison feedback group demonstrated greater throwing accuracy than the control group on the retention test. In addition, questionnaire results indicated that this group scored higher in terms of perceived competence and effort/importance than the control group. These findings demonstrate that feedback can have an important motivational function that affects the learning of motor skills in children / O presente estudo investigou a influência do feedback positivo de comparação social na aprendizagem de uma tarefa de arremesso em crianças com 10 anos de idade. Dois grupos de participantes, um denominado de feedback positivo de comparação social e outro grupo controle, receberam feedback verídico sobre sua performance depois de cada tentativa de prática. Em adicional, o grupo feedback positivo de comparação social recebeu após cada bloco de 10 tentativas uma informação sugerindo que sua performance estava melhor do que a performance de outras crianças que já haviam executado a mesma tarefa. Um dia após a fase de prática, um teste de retenção foi realizado sem feedback (verídico ou de comparação social). Os resultados do estudo demonstraram que o grupo feedback positivo de comparação social apresentou melhor precisão dos arremessos que o grupo controle no teste de retenção. Assim como, os resultados do questionário indicaram que esse mesmo grupo apresentou maior percepção de competência e esforço/importância na tarefa do que o grupo controle. Esses resultados demonstram que o feedback pode exercer uma importante função motivacional a qual afeta a aprendizagem de habilidades motoras em crianças

Social-comparative feedback (i.e., providing a learner with information regarding his/her performance relative to a group average) has been shown to influence a learner’s psychological and behavioural outcomes during motor skill acquisition (Avila, Chiviacowsky, Wulf, & Lewthwaite, 2012; Eliasz, 2012; Lewthwaite & Wulf, 2010; McKay, Lewthwaite, & Wulf, 2012; Stoate, Wulf, & Lewthwaite, 2012; Wulf, Chiviacowsky, & Cardozo, 2014; Wulf, Chiviacowsky, & Lewthwaite, 2010, 2012; Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016). This research indicates that motor skill acquisition is facilitated when learners believe they are performing better than the average, regardless of their actual performance. It has been suggested (Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016) that a better-than-average mindset enhances psychological factors such as self-efficacy and motivation and in turn, actual behaviour. However, there is also evidence to suggest that self-efficacy (having state-like properties) and motivation (having both state and trait-like properties) are related in terms of their affective influence on learning (Bandura, 1997; Schunk, 1990, 1991, 1995) but the relationship between the two constructs and its subsequent outcomes remain unclear. Even though individual differences in motivation have been suggested to influence self-efficacy beliefs, they have been largely ignored in this line of research. There is also evidence to suggest that learners possessing high levels of motivation (whether that may be at a trait or state level) may not interpret feedback in the same manner (Aronson, 1992; Festinger, 1957; Frey, 1986; Harmon-Jones, 2012; Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2002; Harmon-Jones, Harmon-Jones, Fearn, Sigelman, & Johnson, 2008; Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999; Harmon-Jones, Schmeichel, Inzlicht, & Harmon- Jones, 2011; Steele, 1988). Therefore, the goal of this dissertation is use both theoretical and applied perspectives to examine the degree to which social- comparative feedback affects psychological and behavioural outcomes in highly- motivated learners (e.g., medical trainees) learning procedural skills. Independent of actual performance, we provided manipulated feedback information to novice pre-clerkship medical trainees while they were learning motor skills to suggest that they were performing better or worse than the average. The first study used a basic sequential key-press learning task (Eliasz, 2012) and a basic suturing task to explore the role of social-comparative feedback in medical trainees and tested whether features of the task were important (i.e., basic laboratory task or technical skill task) during the interpretation of this feedback. The second study used the same experimental paradigm to extend our results to a relevant medical education context (i.e., medical trainees learning basic suturing techniques). The final study examined whether the credibility of the feedback provider (i.e., expert versus peer) played a role in how social-comparative feedback was being internalized by novice medical trainees. Our initial study demonstrated that, compared to those receiving positive or no social-comparative feedback, medical trainees receiving negative social- comparative feedback during motor skill acquisition had significant difficulties in learning both the laboratory and technical skill task. These findings suggested that compared to other learners, novice medical trainees (a subset of highly-motivated learners), responded differently to social-comparative feedback. The second study replicated this pattern and revealed that medical trainees receiving below-average feedback during technical skill acquisition experienced significant detriments to their performance, learning and self-efficacy. Our final study found that regardless of the feedback source (hypothetical expert versus another peer), the experience of receiving negative social-comparative feedback impacted self- reported psychological measures and the immediate performance of a basic surgical technique. This dissertation provides, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstration that medical trainees, a subset of highly-motivated learners, interpret social-comparative feedback differently than other learners studied in the literature. More specifically, receiving positive social-comparative feedback did not facilitate the learning process as found in previous studies with non-medical learners, while the delivery of negative social-comparative feedback, irrespective of task or feedback provider, was psychologically and behaviourally detrimental to novice medical trainees learning motor skills. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation includes three original studies designed to examine the effects of social-comparative feedback during skill acquisition in highly- motivated learners (e.g., medical trainees). Regardless of actual task performance, novice medical trainees who were provided with feedback during the learning process indicating that they were performing worse than the group average, experienced significant detriments to their psychological and behavioural outcomes. This effect was present regardless of the task being learned (i.e., key- pressing or suturing) or who was delivering the feedback (i.e., a hypothetical ‘expert’ or ‘peer’). Receiving better-than-average feedback did not result in any additional psychological and behavioural benefits. Contrary to the research with non-medical students, where “you are above-average” social-comparative feedback facilitates learning and “you are below-average” social-comparative feedback is no different than a control condition, these studies suggest that the experience of receiving below-average feedback during the learning process can be detrimental for highly-motivated novice learners. These findings are important to consider in both the context of feedback delivery and remediation as they provide evidence that novice medical trainees, regardless of the task and feedback provider, experience difficulty in receiving information that they are performing relatively poorly compared to their peers.