WHETHER SHORT-TERM EXPERIENCE CAN ENHANCE PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR LEARNING IN A MOVING (VEHICULAR) GAP INTERCEPTION TASK

Background: Accurate perceptual judgment and skilful movement coordination are required to perform sports specific or everyday perceptual-motor tasks. In ball catching, for example, a catcher must judge the spatial and temporal aspects of the flying ball and adjust his locomotion according to the changing situation. Likewise, an everyday perceptual-motor task that requires perceptual accuracy and skilful movement coordination is to intercept a gap between moving vehicles as a pedestrian (i.e., road-crossing). Purpose: Experience (both short-term and long-term) is important in learning to perform such everyday perceptual-motor skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of short-term experience on pedestrians’ perceptual decisions and movement coordination in an experimental road-crossing task. Methods: Twenty-two young adults of Kunsan National University participated voluntarily in the experiment and performed a moving gap interception task (road-crossing) in the virtual environment. Results: Participants’ perceptual decisions improved and movement coordination during gap interception enhanced with short-term experience. Conclusion: this study concluded that perception and movement coordination can be calibrated with experience even in short-time scale. Also, perceptual accuracy and enhanced motor-ability is important to increase pedestrians’ safety in road-crossing and in other similar everyday perceptual-motor tasks.