Adams' closed-loop concept of learning and motor performance: its application in behavioural kinesiology and patients' education in rehabilitation

Abstract

The earlier attempts to explain the process of learning were briefly reviewed. The limitations of these attempts led to the origin of the closed-loop concept of learning and motor performance. The analogy between the concept and a closed-loop machine model was explained in order to substantiate the relevance of this concept in human performance. The reason for the choice of Adams' concept (amongst those of others) has been identified--its uniqueness in the definition of the perceptual trace and, more importantly, the role of the knowledge of result (KR) of a performance in the learning process. A synthetic review of some literature that discussed Adams' concept has also been done. Finally, this paper has revealed that Adams' closed-loop concept is very applicable to behavioural kinesiology and patients' education in rehabilitation. It is, therefore, hypothesized that a more specific model can be developed to explain the detail of the environmental and kinematic contingencies that are inherent in this application.