Somersaulting

The main idea behind this post is: Self-Produced Information- when an observer's movement provides information that the observer uses to guide further movement.

One hypothesis stated that a gymnasts' movement should be the same with their eyes open or closed. Benoit Bardy & Makel Laurent (1998) found that expert gymnasts performed somersaults more poorly with their eyes closed. Videos prove that when their eyes were open, they can make "in-air" adjustments. They can fix themselves from going crooked, avoiding an obstacle or speeding up their trick.

Another result was that being blindfolded did not affect novice gymnasts, as much as it affected the performance of experts. This is because experts learn to coordinate their movements with their perceptions, but novices haven't mastered this skill yet.

Somersaulting, like other forms of action, involves the regulation of action during the continuous flow of perceptual information. I was shocked to hear that being blindfolded affected tumbling so drastically; The videos from the experiment were unavailable, so I decided to try it for myself, because I didn't believe it was true when I heard it. As it turns out, it is EXTREMELY hard to tumble blindfolded.

By: Katie McGinley