Publications by authors named "Matthew W Miller"

We aimed to determine how a bout of resistance or aerobic exercise impacts physiological responses and performance during firefighting occupational tasks. Thirty-two non-firefighters completed two baseline assessments and three trials: resistance exercise (RE), aerobic exercise (AE), or a rested control (CON). Trials were followed by an occupational task assessment (OTA; four rounds of 10 deadlifts (38.

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Introduction: According to reinforcement learning, humans adjust their behavior based on the difference between actual and anticipated outcomes (i.e., prediction error) with the main goal of maximizing rewards through their actions.

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Article Synopsis
  • Acute exercise can temporarily boost cognitive flexibility, which is important for firefighters; this study investigates if on-shift exercises can maintain cognitive performance during work tasks.
  • 32 participants performed a cognitive task and then engaged in either resistance exercise, aerobic exercise, or a control condition before completing an occupational task.
  • The findings indicated that neither exercise type significantly improved cognitive flexibility, although aerobic exercise was associated with lower heart rate variability metrics, suggesting potential effects on autonomic function.
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Gait adaptation during bipedal walking allows people to adjust their walking patterns to maintain balance, avoid obstacles and avoid injury. Adaptation involves complex processes that function to maintain stability and reduce energy expenditure. However, the processes that influence walking patterns during different points in the adaptation period remain to be investigated.

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Motivation is commonly recognized by researchers and practitioners as a key factor for motor learning. The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning (Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016) claims that practice conditions that enhance learners' expectancies for future successful outcomes or that are autonomy supportive are motivating, thus leading to better learning. To examine the current evidence of the association between motivation and motor learning, we searched the literature for studies that manipulated expectancies and/or autonomy support.

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We conceptually replicated the one previous study (see record 2009-13549-001) revealing that individuals who practice a motor skill under psychological pressure (anxiety training-AT) avoid performance deterioration when exposed to higher levels of pressure. We used a >3× larger sample size than the original study and attempted to shed light on mechanisms whereby AT may promote performance under pressure by measuring variables related to three theories of choking under pressure: attentional control theory (ACT), reinvestment theory, and the biopsychosocial model (BPSM) of challenge and threat. Eighty-four participants practiced 300 golf putts over 2 days with mild psychological pressure manipulations (AT group) or no pressure manipulations (control group).

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OPTIMAL theory predicts providing learners with a relatively easier criterion of success during practice enhances motor learning through increased self-efficacy, perceptions of competence, and intrinsic motivation. However, mixed results in the literature suggest this enhancement effect may be moderated by the number of successes achieved by learners practicing with the difficult criterion. To investigate this possibility, we manipulated quantity of practice to affect the absolute number of successes achieved by learners practicing with different success criteria.

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Objective: Having learners practice a motor skill with the expectation of teaching it (versus an expectation of being tested on it) has been revealed to enhance skill learning. However, this improvement in skill performance is lost when the skill must be performed under psychological pressure due to 'choking under pressure.' The present study investigated whether this choking effect is caused by an accrual of declarative knowledge during skill practice and could be prevented if a technique (analogy instructions) to minimize the accrual of declarative knowledge during practice is employed.

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The present study tested whether energy-minimizing behaviors evoke reward-related brain activity that promotes the repetition of these behaviors via reinforcement learning processes. Fifty-eight healthy young adults in a standing position performed a task where they could earn a reward either by sitting down or squatting while undergoing electroencephalographic (EEG) recording. Reward-prediction errors were quantified as the amplitude of the EEG-derived reward positivity.

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Using computerized reaction-time tasks assessing automatic attitudes, studies have shown that healthy young adults have faster reaction times when approaching physical activity stimuli than when avoiding them. The opposite has been observed for sedentary stimuli. However, it is unclear whether these results hold across the lifespan and when error rates and a possible generic approach-avoidance tendency are accounted for.

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Track and Field athletes perform different types of warm-ups at varying levels of volume and/or intensity prior to competition. Theoretically, this prepares sport specific muscles for activity by increasing muscle temperature, thus mitigating the chance for injury. There is a paucity of information regarding the optimum level for warm-ups regarding maximizing performance in middle distance events.

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Although the learning benefits of interleaved practice schedules relative to blocked schedules are well-reported, the mechanisms underlying these effects are not fully understood. Researchers have generally suggested that random schedules of practice increase task-related information processing which arises due to switching between variations of the same task (or switching between different tasks). Thus, one potentially useful way to both probe and manipulate contextual interference is to pair it with error estimation during practice.

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Introduction: The slope of the electroencephalography (EEG) power spectrum (also referred to as 1/f noise) is an important consideration when calculating narrow-band power. However, psychophysiological data also suggest this slope is a meaningful signal itself, not merely background activity or noise. We present two different methods for quantifying the slope of the power spectrum and assess their reliability and sensitivity.

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Objective: Interest in automatic associations of exercise and physical activity as potential contributors to behavior is rising. However, the measurement of these associations presents a challenge, since the reliability and validity of behavioral tests (despite their widespread usage) is unsatisfactory by most accounts. As a possible alternative, an electroencephalographic (EEG) index (i.

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Objective: Having learners practice a motor skill with the expectation of teaching it (versus an expectation of being tested on it) has been revealed to enhance skill learning. However, this improvement in skill performance is lost when the skill must be performed under psychological pressure due to 'choking under pressure.' The present study will investigate whether this choking effect is caused by an accrual of declarative knowledge during skill practice and could be prevented if a technique (analogy instructions) to minimize the accrual of declarative knowledge during practice is employed.

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Background: Adverse childhood experiences, depressive symptoms, and functional dependence are interrelated. However, the mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear. The authors investigated the potential of depressive symptoms to mediate the effect of adverse childhood experiences on functional dependence in older age and whether physical activity moderated this mediation.

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Attentional capture by exercise-related stimuli is important for the regulation of physical activity. Attentional processing underlying this capture has been investigated with indirect behavioral measures based on reaction times. To investigate more direct measures of visual spatial attention toward physical activity (vs.

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Background: Clinical data research networks (CDRNs) aggregate electronic health record data from multiple hospitals to enable large-scale research. A critical operation toward building a CDRN is conducting continual evaluations to optimize data quality. The key challenges include determining the assessment coverage on big datasets, handling data variability over time, and facilitating communication with data teams.

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Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the influence of lower limb loss (LL) on mental workload by assessing neurocognitive measures in individuals with unilateral transtibial (TT) versus those with transfemoral (TF) LL while dual-task walking under varying cognitive demand.

Methods: Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded as participants performed a task of varying cognitive demand while being seated or walking (i.e.

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Background Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked disease that causes progressive muscle weakness. Affected boys typically die from respiratory or cardiac failure. Golden retriever muscular dystrophy (GRMD) is genetically homologous with DMD and causes analogous skeletal and cardiac muscle disease.

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Some models of motivation distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. While past work has examined the neural and cognitive correlates of extrinsic motivation, research on intrinsic motivation has relied primarily on behavioral measures of performance and learning. In particular, no past work has examined the neural and cognitive correlates of social performance expectancy, which is linked to intrinsic motivation.

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While several studies have examined attentional reserve (via event-related potentials) and mental effort (via EEG spectral content) from various cortical regions during dual-task walking, none have assessed changes in the magnitude of interregional (cortico-cortical) communication as a measure of mental workload. Therefore, by deploying a traditional montage of electrode sites centered over the motor planning region as well as a more comprehensive graph theory-based approach encompassing the entire scalp, this study aimed to systematically examine changes in the magnitude of functional connectivity underlying cortico-cortical communication to assess changes in mental workload under various levels of challenge. Specifically, the Weighted Phase Lag Index (WPLI) was computed to assess the changes in magnitude of functional connectivity as participants performed a cognitive task under two demands (low and high) and two conditions (seated and walking).

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Poor neighborhood conditions are associated with lower levels of physical activity for older adults but socio-ecological models posit that physical activity depends on both environmental and individual factors. Older adults' ability to overcome environmental barriers to physical activity may partially rely on cognitive resources. However, evidence on the moderating role of these cognitive resources in the associations between environmental barriers and physical activity is still lacking.

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A recent theory contends that behaviors minimizing energetic cost are rewarding (Cheval et al., 2018). However, direct experimental evidence supporting this theory is lacking.

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Past research has revealed practicing and studying a motor skill with the expectation of teaching it to another person increases the amount of time participants spend preparing for movement during practice trials of the skill. However, it is unknown whether the increased motor preparation time explains the benefit of expecting to teach on motor learning. To address this question, we had participants practice golf putting with the expectation of teaching the skill to another participant the following day or the expectation of being tested on the skill the following day.

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