Observational modeling effects for movement dynamics and movement outcome measures across differing task constraints: a meta-analysis.

The authors conducted a meta-analysis of the observational modeling literature to quantify overall between-participants treatment effects obtained when movement behaviors are acquired. Effects were obtained and reported separately for movement dynamics (MD) and movement outcome (MO) measures. The overall mean observational modeling treatment effects (delta(u)Bi) were 0.77 and 0.17, respectively, for MD and MO measures. The effects reflected a significant advantage of observational modeling over practice-only control conditions. Most important, the magnitude of the obtained effects was far stronger for MD than for MO measures, confirming a distinctive response to observational modeling during motor learning. The advantage for MD measures over observational modeling measures was replicated for different types of tasks. Observational modeling was particularly beneficial for serial tasks (delta(u)Bi = 1.62 and 0.61, respectively, for MD and MO). There were slightly reduced effects for continuous tasks (delta(u)Bi = 1.01 and 0.51, respectively, for MD and MO) and smaller to medium-sized effects for discrete tasks (delta(u)Bi = 0.56 and 0.10, respectively, for MD and MO). The authors discuss those findings with reference to the visual perception perspective on observational modeling, i.e., that demonstrations primarily convey relative motions required to approximate modeled movement behaviors.