Sex-related differences in motor learning and performance

We investigated gender differences in motor performance in 9-, 12-, and 17-year-olds. The tasks included simple thumb tapping (sTT), handwriting (HW) and finger-to-thumb opposition sequence (FOS) learning. In sTT there was a significant advantage for the 17-year-old males. In HW, 12-year-old females were faster, initially, than the males, but this gap was closed by a single training session; in the 17-year-olds although no significant difference was found initially, the males became faster than the age-matched females posttraining. In the FOS, there were no initial gender differences (speed or accuracy). However, males benefited more from training, with the 17-year-old males attaining a significant post-training speed advantage. Moreover, males, of all three age-groups, evolved significantly larger delayed ("off-line") performance gains in the FOS task compared to females; gains which were retained 6-weeks post-training. There may be a male advantage in motor learning rather than in motor performance per-se; this advantage is enhanced during adolescence.

The Quarterly Review of Biology, 2018

The development of the ability to throw projectiles for distance, speed, and accuracy was a watershed event in human evolution. We hypothesize that throwing first arose in threat displays and during fighting and later was incorporated into hunting by members of the Homo lineage because nonhuman primates often throw projectiles during agonistic interactions and only rarely in attempts to subdue prey. Males, who threw more often than females in both combat and hunting, would have been under stronger selection than females to become proficient at the ability to throw, intercept, and dodge projectiles as throwing skills became critical to success in combat and hunting. Therefore, we predict that males, more than females, should display innate anatomical and behavioral traits associated with throwing. We use data from a variety of disciplines to discuss: the sex differences in throwing speed, distance, and accuracy; sex differences in the development of the throwing motion; inability of training or cultural influences to erase the sex differences in throwing; sex differences in the use of throwing in sports, combat, and hunting; and sex differences in anatomical traits associated with throwing that are partly responsible for male throwing superiority. These data contradict the view held by many commentators that socialization rather than innate sex differences in ability are primarily responsible for male throwing superiority. We suggest that throwing is a male adaptation.

2014

In studies that have compared females and males on movement tasks, the emphasis has been on performance outcome measures, with comparatively little focus upon the coordination process that underpins the performance. Coordinated motor skills are developed through practice; any differences in coordination and performance between the sexes may therefore reflect differences in the volume of prior practice or experience with a task. Investigating the changes in coordination that occur with practice also provides insight into the underlying processes of motor control, yet research in the field of motor control rarely considers novice performers, nor the comparison of the sexes. There has been recent interest in the exploration of sex differences in movement that may occur during the performance of landing related tasks. It has been suggested that the inconsistency of findings may in part be accounted for by the confounding factor of prior practice or experience in the motor task. To further explore the role that experience plays in shaping movement kinematics, the study that comprises chapter three included both recreational and competitive surfers and compared their performance with non-surfers on a drop-landing task (surfers are exposed to incidental landing with an increasing frequency as they progress in the sport). Knee flexion and ankle dorsiflexion at initial ground contact were greater in male participants, independently of surfing experience. Body configuration at initial contact represents the neuromuscular strategy being used to land and absorb force; it was possible that males and females here used different movement strategies, to achieve the same performance outcome. In both females and males, range of motion at these joints was related to surfing experience, with experienced surfers using a greater range of motion. Recreational female surfers landed in a more extended ankle and knee posture than all other groups and had less ankle dorsiflexion at the end of landing. In conclusion, movement pattern during landing differed on the basis of both sex and level of expertise, with the sex difference most apparent in females with some but not a lot of surfing experience. vii The results of the first study highlighted a need to consider the mediating factor of prior practice or experience when comparing movement and performance between females and males. Evidence from this and other landing research suggests that sex differences in movement can be accounted for at least in part by experience; the related question of whether females and males achieve similar performance improvement from an equal volume of practice has not been addressed. Chapter four explored this question using the slalom-skiing simulator task to compare performance and rate of learning between the sexes on a novel task. Whole body coordination and electromyography (EMG) were employed to provide a comprehensive account of movement kinematics and kinetics. Eight males and eight females performed five days of practice (25 x 1 min trials). There were no differences in rate of learning for any outcome variable. A male performance advantage was observed for the related outcome measures of platform oscillation frequency, cycle duration and work performed, but these differences were largely accounted for by the higher spring resistance settings of the apparatus for heavier male subjects, in accordance with manufacturer specifications. Most importantly, it was shown that both males and females were moving towards their optimal frequency with practice-performance and success at the task actually comparable. Some minimal differences observed in movement kinematics between the sexes also were attributable to height differences, interacting with the apparatus set up. The only kinematic difference not readily explained was that males employed greater maximum knee flexion throughout the movement cycle. In summary, minor differences in movement performance and kinematics were attributable to anthropometric differences between the sexes, but otherwise males and females showed similar initial and final performance outcomes and achieved similar gains from an equal volume of practice. The findings support the view that any sex differences observed in movement commonly may be accounted for by differences in prior experience. The results from chapter four provided evidence for the idea that similar performance can be achieved via different movement patterns; otherwise understood as the redundancy problem. A fundamental concept in motor control is that complex movement is organised into a low dimensional control space and that this develops through practice. The basis of this coordination structure is the coupling and correlation between elements in the motor system. Principal component analysis (PCA) provides a viii powerful tool for quantifying these relations and allows the reduction of complex movement datasets into a smaller number of variables. This can provide insight into the development of coordinated movement and has been applied to a limited number of studies investigating longitudinal changes with learning. Chapter six applied a recently developed technique in PCA, to provide further insight into the changes in coordination that occurred with practice on the skiing-simulator. Whereas traditional PCA uses Pearson's correlation coefficients (PCC) to quantify correlation between elements, the more recent technique employs linear systems analysis and a measure of overall coherence (COH) to quantify correlation in the frequency domain. We compared the changes in the dimensionality of both kinematic and IEMG signals over the course of practice to establish which technique could provide better insight into the underlying coordination structure for this movement. There were no differences between male and female performers for this measure of coordination, which again supported the idea that with equal practice, performance is similar, despite any differences in anthropmetrics. The variance accounted for by the first principal component increased with practice and was significantly greater using the COH method compared to the PCC. Fewer principal components were required to account for 90% of the variance using COH; the number also decreased significantly with practice only for this method. The loading of original variables onto the principal components revealed that all variables were loaded strongly onto the first principal component. Overall the results revealed whole body movement on the skiing-simulator could be defined in a low dimensional space and that the dimension was reduced further over the course of practice. More importantly, the hidden low dimensional structure was best revealed when PCA incorporating correlation in the frequency domain was employed. ix PUBLICATIONS The systematic review component of Chapter 1 and Appendix A has been published

Journal of Neurophysiology, 2019

Overarm throwing is a fundamental human skill. Since paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies, the ability of throwing played a key role in brain and body co-evolution. For decades, throwing skill acquisition has been the subject of developmental and gender studies. However, due to its complex multijoint nature, whole body throwing has found little space in quantitative studies of motor behavior. In this study we examined how overarm throwing varies within and between individuals in a sample of untrained adults. To quantitatively compare whole body kinematics across throwing actions, we introduced a new combination of spatiotemporal principal component, linear discrimination, and clustering analyses. We found that the identity and gender of a thrower can be robustly inferred by the kinematics of a single throw, reflecting the characteristic features in individual throwing strategies and providing a quantitative ground for the well-known differences between males and females in throwing...

2002

A series of experimental and quasi-experimental research were conducted to investigate gender differences and differences across levels of skill amongst elite dart players. Experiments 1 and 1a employed an identical experimental setting and were designed to investigate gender differences in target throwing accuracy and attitudes towards target throwing among undergraduate students and elite dart players. A further aim was to investigate differences between level of skill for the elite players. Results showed an overall significant superiority for men in target throwing accuracy, moreover, analyses of questionnaire data found significant gender differences in attitudes towards target throwing. Experiment 2 examined whether gender differences in target throwing accuracy may be eliminated if elite dart players undertook the same target throwing task as in Experiment 1 a using their non-preferred hand. The results of Experiment 2 showed that when using their non-preferred hand gender di...

Experimental Brain Research, 2010

The praxis system comprises a network of brain regions dedicated to complex skilled movements. Following suggestions of a female advantage on learned movements (Chipman and Hampson in Neuropsychologia 44(12):2315-2329, 2006), we investigated how males and females acquire skilled movements. Subjects viewed and imitated sequences of hand movements, which were repeated ten times. Subjects' imitations were captured by a data glove, and the temporal and spatial characteristics of the imitations were compared to the model sequence. We propose an account of the computations required for imitating hand movement sequences and define the errors that may arise from failures at these computations. Our results demonstrate a female advantage in the acquisition of hand movement sequences and show that this sex difference is accounted for by a female advantage in planning, rather than an advantage in execution or online control. Further, the female advantage is specific to the production of items within a sequence and does not affect the proper ordering of items. Our findings have important implications for sexsensitive instructional strategies, as well as for understanding the human praxis system.

Thesis (M.S. - Physical Education)--University of Arizona. Includes bibliographical references.

Memory & …, 2007

Males and females differ in several cognitive abilities, although the largest gap can be found in spatial ability. Some published studies claim that "performance factors", which can be either subject-or task-related variables, explain these differences. However, previous studies measuring performance factors have focused on static spatial tests. Little is known about the role of performance factors in dynamic spatial tasks. The present study analyzes a sample of 2,624 university graduates to test the role of three performance factors (response latency, response frequency, and invested time) derived from the Spatial Orientation Dynamic Test-Revised (SODT-R). The results showed that males and females appear to cope with the dynamic task in different ways. However, males outperformed females even when the effects of the performance factors were partialled out; that is, the assessed performance factors did not explain much of the sex-related variance. Alternative ways of measuring performance factors will be needed if they are to explain sex differences in dynamic spatial ability.

Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1985

In an experiment examining the relationship between sexrole and acquisition of motor skill, sex-role was related to performance (time-on-target) and reminiscence for women but not men. 15 androgynous, masculine, feminine, and undifferentiated men (n = 6 0) and women (n = 60) performed 80 15-sec. trials on the pursuit-rotor. Results indicated that the time-on-target performance of men as a group was significantly better than that of women. However, the data indicated that the performance of androgynous women was not significantly different from all groups of men; feminine women showed the poorest performance. Femininity was related to poorer performance only in women. Feminine women also had the highest reminiscence scores (a measure of recovery from performance decrement during 15-sec. rest intervals). For these performance measures (time-on-target and reminiscence) under these conditions, motor skill varied as a function of sex-role for women.

Journal of neurophysiology, 2001

In a previous study, others have hypothesized that the variance in vertical errors that occurs while throwing at visual targets is caused by changes in any of three throw parameters: hand location in space, hand translational velocity, and hand orientation. From an analysis of skilled throwers, those authors concluded that vertical error is best correlated with variance in hand orientation, which in turn is related to the timing of ball release. We used a vertical prism adaptation paradigm to investigate which of these throwing parameters subjects use when adapting to external perturbation. Our subjects showed no correlation between hand position or hand translational velocity and ball impact height in normal, over-practiced throwing. However, video-based motion analysis showed that modifications both of position and speed of the hand play an important role when subjects are forced to compensate for a vertically shifting prism perturbation during a dart-like throw (these factors con...