Significantly updated with current research, new learning features, and more references, the fifth edition of Motor Control and Learning: A Behavioral Approach expertly combines text, figures, and practical examples to explain this complex topic in a clear and comprehensive manner. This outstanding introduction to the field focuses on motor behavior that can be observed directly as well as the many factors that affect the quality of these performances and the ease with which they can be learned. Additionally, the text examines some of the neurological and biomechanical processes that create complex movement behaviors, reflecting the convergence toward a shared understanding of complex movement behaviors across the fields of motor behavior and motor learning, motor control, and biomechanics.
Motor Control and Learning, Fifth Edition, frames the important issues, theories, people, and research from the field in a reader-friendly way, giving students a clear introduction to the most current information available. Schmidt and Lee, respected researchers and authors, continue to refresh this classic and comprehensive text through the following features:
•More than 280 new references and approximately 50 pages of new content
•Expanded information on attention, human motor performance, and the learning process
•New research highlight boxes, which present issues relevant to the chapter's topic in a reader-friendly way
•Historical highlight boxes that present the historical connection to certain concepts and principles of motor behavior
•New end-of-chapter study tools, including a summary, student assignments, Web resources, and notes to help students grasp important concepts, prepare for exams, and explore online activities
•A new image bank for professors that provides access to all the images in the text for use in handouts and PowerPoint presentations
Authors Schmidt and Lee expertly present the complex topic of motor control and learning in a precise manner that students can easily understand. New and updated diagrams offer visual explanations, and practical examples illustrate concepts in motor control and learning and provide concrete suggestions for application. In addition, sidebars throughout the text provide more detailed treatment of specific research to ensure comprehension. The fifth edition features a logical progression wherein later chapters build on concepts presented in earlier chapters, resulting in a consistent framework of ideas about motor skills.
Motor Control and Learning begins with an introduction to research and fundamental concepts important to understanding motor behavior. In the second part of the text, readers will learn about motor control, including contributions from the sensory and central nervous systems; principles related to speed and accuracy; factors involved in movement control and coordination; and factors that determine skill differences between people and among groups of people. The final portion of the text covers skill acquisition, examining special methodological problems for studying motor learning, various theoretical treatments of motor learning, and factors associated with the retention and transfer of skills.
Motor Control and Learning: A Behavioral Approach presents an up-to-date review of the state of knowledge in movement control and learning, including the most recent information from several rapidly developing subfields. This edition of the text offers both practitioners and students a perspective of motor skills that serves as a basis for contributions to new and existing applications and the facilitation of new research.
Richard A. Schmidt, PhD, is professor emeritus in the department of psychology at UCLA. He currently runs his own consulting firm, Human Performance Research, working in the area of human factors and human performance. Known as one of the leaders in research on motor behavior, Dr. Schmidt has more than 35 years' experience in this area and has published widely.
The originator of schema theory, Dr. Schmidt founded the Journal of Motor Behavior in 1969 and was editor for 11 years. He authored the first edition of Motor Control and Learning in 1982, followed up with a second edition of the popular text in 1988, and collaborated with Tim Lee for the third edition in 1999 and fourth edition in 2005.
Dr. Schmidt received an honorary doctorate from Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, in recognition of his work. Schmidt is a member of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (of which he was president in 1982), the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and the Psychonomic Society. Dr. Schmidt has received the C.H. McCloy Research Lectureship from the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.
His leisure-time activities include sailboat racing, amateur Porsche racing, and skiing.
Timothy D. Lee, PhD, is a professor in the department of kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He has published extensively in motor behavior and psychology journals since 1979. More recently, he has contributed as an editor to Journal of Motor Behavior and Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport and as an editorial board member for Psychological Review. Since 1984 his research has been supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Dr. Lee is a member and past president of the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology (SCAPPS) and a member of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (NASPSPA), the Psychonomic Society, and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. In 1980 Dr. Lee received the inaugural Young Scientist Award from SCAPPS; in 1991-92 he received a Senior Research Fellowship by the Dienst Onderzoekscoordinatie, Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium; and in 2005 he presented a prestigious Senior Scientist Lecture at NASPSPA.
In his leisure time, Dr. Lee enjoys playing hockey and golf. He has maintained a lifelong fascination with blues music and would one day love to put years of motor learning study into practice by learning to play blues guitar.
