Volume 14 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1284053 This article is part of the Research TopicCognitive and Motor Skills in SportsView all 19 articles and other health professions as it entails learning through practice To achieve proficiency in a complex motor task finding ways to speed up the learning process is important This study examines the impact of different training approaches on learning three-ball cascade juggling Participants were assigned to one of two groups: practicing by gradually increasing difficulty and elements of the juggling movement (“learning in parts”) or training on the complete skill from the start (“all-at-once”) Results revealed that although the all-at-once group in the early stages of learning showed greater improvement in performance the “learning in parts” group managed to catch up even over a relatively short period of time The lack of difference in performance between the groups at the end of the training session suggests that the choice of training regime (between all-at-once and learning in parts) can be selected based on other factors such as the learner’s preference juggling would be described as having environmental constraints of motion with intertrial variability and to have body stability requiring manipulation which is most relevant for learning juggling they found that increasing difficulty can be a good strategy for learning when the increase in difficulty occurs adaptively for each participant For successful learning, the role of the learner’s motivation and feeling of success is significant. In a previous experiment in golf-putting, enhancing learners’ expectancies by providing a relatively “easy” performance criterion for good performance relative to a more difficult one led to more effective learning of a golf-putting task (Palmer et al., 2016) we compared learning in easier difficulty levels that progress to full skill difficulty with learning the task from the start at the full skill difficulty we compared acquiring three balls cascaded juggling skills between two groups - one group learned at increasing difficulty levels through practicing elements of the full movement while the other group learned the full complex movement at one consistent difficulty level We predict that in the early stages of training the group that practices the whole movement will perform better the group that practices learning in parts will overtake their performance We recruited 40 participants from the student population at the Tel Aviv University campus through flyers placed around the campus and Facebook groups Each participant came to the lab for a single visit of approximately 1 h The inclusion criteria were: age 18–35 The exclusion criteria were: ADHD diagnosis or previous juggling experience The experiment was performed with three standard juggling balls the participants were filmed using a GoPro Hero 7 camera for later analysis The participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups in a counter-balanced manner, which varied only in the type of training provided – learning in parts, or all-at-once. The experimental protocol is summarized in Figure 1 the participants performed a juggling test with three balls for 1 min Participants began the test while holding two balls in their right hand and one ball in their left hand A successful three-ball juggling cascade catch was defined as follows: participants started by throwing one of the balls from the right hand diagonally across their body to the other side they threw the second ball from their left hand to the opposite side and caught the first ball they threw the third ball to the opposite side and caught the second ball Participants earned one point for every set of three successful throws and catches and additional points for each subsequent catch beyond the initial three if they successfully made four consecutive throws and catches The total number of points for each test interval was calculated based on the cumulative number of successful catches within the one-minute juggling period To account for potential variability in performance participants performed the juggling test three times within each interval The median value of the points from these three repetitions was used to determine their overall performance The median is a statistical measure that identifies the middle value when data points are arranged in order which can be more robust against outliers than taking the mean The tests were recorded using a camera to confirm the counts during the tests and the videos were solely used for this purpose The training consisted of three stages, each 13 min long that included 2 min of watching a video with instructions from a Youtube video “Learn to JUGGLE 3 BALLS - Beginner Tutorial” (Glenn, 2019) 1 min of going over the instructions together with the research assistant 9.5 min of practicing juggling and 30 s rest while seated before the next test Details of which parts of the video were played are provided in the Supplementary material The learning in parts group received three different sets of instructions: Juggling with one ball: Aim for the upper corner on the opposite side of the hand that is throwing the ball and throw the ball above eye height Throw the ball vertically so that it stays close to your body Juggling with two balls: Start by throwing the ball in your right hand Aim with the balls for the same height above eye level Throw the balls vertically so that they stay close to the body To create a fixed rhythm between the balls throw the second ball at the same time in every repetition such that you throw the ball when the first ball starts to lose height practice starting by throwing from the left hand you should have two balls in the right hand Start by throwing one of the balls from the right hand Aim for the upper corner on the opposite side from the throwing hand and throw above eye height throw the ball from your left hand in the same manner When the second ball starts to lose height Throw the balls vertically so they stay close to each other throw the second ball at the same time each cycle so that the next ball is thrown when the previous ball starts to lose height The all-at-once training group received the third instruction above in each of the three training sessions. In the experiment, the participants were instructed in Hebrew, the instructions provided here are a translation. The original Hebrew instructions can be found in the Supplementary material All participants signed an informed consent form before starting the experiment and the experiment received ethical approval from and was run according to the guidelines of the Tel Aviv University Institutional Review Board (IRB) The participants received payment for their participation p values for the post-hoc tests were corrected using the Holm method Forty participants took part in the experiment divided into two groups (Learning in parts: 10 males mean ± SD age 25.40 ± 3.87; all-at-once: 10 males mean ± SD age 25.65 ± 3.92) We did not observe a significant difference in age between the groups [t (38) = −0.217 The chi-squared test did not show a significant difference in the number of male or female participants between the groups [χ2 (1) = 0.0 The outcomes of the tests are shown In Figure 2. A main effect was observed for test [F (1.652) = 38.5, p < 0.001]. Note that the degrees of freedom are not integers because the nparLD package uses Box-type approximations for estimating the distribution of the ANOVA-type statistics (Brunner et al., 1997) Post-hoc tests showed that the score on test 3 (median 6 IQR 1–19.25) was greater than in test 2 [median 5.5 IQR 0–13.25; F (1) = 15.6 which in turn was greater than in test 1 [median 1.5 IQR 0–10; F (1) = 27.4 which was greater than the score at baseline [median 0 IQR 0–3.25; F (1) = 18.3 A main effect of group was not observed [F (1) = 0.028 An interaction of test and group was observed [F (1.65) = 3.64 showed that a significant difference between baseline and test 1 was observed only for the all-at-once group (baseline: median 0 A = 0.78) and not for the learning in parts group (baseline: median 0.5 Both groups showed a significant improvement between test 1 and test 2 [all-at-once: test 2: median 6 A = 0.8; learning in parts: test 2: median 5.5 a significant difference was only observed for the learning in parts group [test 3: median 7 A = 0.83] and not for the all-at-once group [test 3: median 5.5 no significant difference was observed between the groups [Mann–Whitney test Figure 2. Juggling test scores of the participants in the two groups, for the baseline test and the three follow-up tests. (A) Juggling test scores for all subjects. For clarity, two outliers are not shown (although they were included in the statistical analysis), a graph including the outliers can be found in the Supplementary material The data is jittered in the left–right direction to show all data points (B) The medians (filled circles) and interquartile ranges (error bars) for the two groups The black horizontal bars indicate significant differences across all subjects pooled together (i.e. while the blue and red bars indicate significant differences between consecutive tests for the all-at-once and learning in parts groups respectively – the differences between the groups explain the observed interaction of test and group *indicate p < 0.05; **indicates p < 0.01; ***indicates p < 0.001 we examined how differences in training affect learning outcomes in a juggling task Analysis of the results revealed that either learning to juggle three balls all-at-once or learning by gradually increasing the difficulty and number of balls showed distinctive learning patterns with the group learning in parts initially lagging behind but eventually catching up to the group learning all-at-once While the group practicing the complete movement initially showed more improvement the learning-in-parts group closed the performance gap by the end of the last test we did not observe significant differences in performance between the groups The authors suggest that these differences may result from differences in neural maturity and motor coordination as children develop the principle of specificity suggests that learning the complete 3 balls cascade juggling may lead to greater initial improvements because it closely aligns with the actual task of juggling that is tested it seems that participants with a background in an upper-limb-involved sport like tennis or basketball may have started with a better initial performance level As discussed before, three balls cascade juggling is a complex motor skill that requires simultaneous control of multiple movements and a high level of bimanual eye-hand coordination (Berchicci et al., 2017). Perception and anticipation of the moving balls determines the planning of subsequent motor actions (Draganski and May, 2008) due to the high level of motor abilities required for scoring one point many participants did not even reach a single point participants practiced juggling for 15 min and then underwent a total of 45 min of tests conducted at three different time points The study concluded that participants could not fully master the juggling skill within the limited initial training and practice sessions most subjects remained in the learning stages of juggling Another factor that should be considered is the relatively small sample size (N = 40 A larger participant group could have potentially demonstrated clearer results with less statistical error and less effects of individual differences The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24018024 The studies involving humans were approved by the Tel Aviv University Institutional Review Board The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research Funding was provided by the German Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research & Development (GIF) The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1284053/full#supplementary-material Individual differences in motor skill learning: past Acquisition and automatization of a complex task: an examination of three-ball Cascade juggling Time-source of neural plasticity in complex bimanual coordinative tasks: juggling Box-type approximations in nonparametric factorial designs CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Children’s age modulates the effect of part and whole practice in motor learning The relevance of stability and change of achievement goals for self-regulated motor learning processes and outcomes CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Training-induced structural changes in the adult human brain CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar and Neuromotor processes” in Movement science: foundations for physical therapy in rehabilitation (Rockville Google Scholar Glenn, T. 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Jason Friedman, amFzb25AdGF1ZXgudGF1LmFjLmls Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish about 600,000 visitors—many young people among them—had seen the traveling exhibition about the persecution of the prisoners with the purple triangle and others of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich The exhibition was staged at memorial museums of former concentration camps as well as in adult-education centers and other educational institutions This effort was important and instrumental in saving these “forgotten victims,” as German historians call them What further benefit comes from the presentation of such an exhibition to the public the annual commemoration day for the victims of National Socialism the Memorial Museum at Sachsenhausen camp dedicated the day to victims who were Jehovah’s Witnesses Minister of Culture and Science in Brandenburg stated: “The behavior of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the camps and prisons embodies virtues which are essential to the continued existence of a democratic constitutional state founded on the rule of law: namely their firm stand against the SS and the consideration toward their fellow inmates Given the increasing brutality toward aliens and towards persons having a different political or philosophical outlook these virtues are a must for every citizen in our country.” This comment emphasizes the fact that exhibitions of this kind do far more than just inform about the facts of the bitter persecution of a religious minority under the Nazi regime It also shows the value and necessity of documenting the past When the exhibition was staged in Hamburg in October 1997 a renowned weekly commented: “It achieves what such exhibitions should always aim for: Out of the plain statistics of harassed people it draws attention to the ordeals of individuals.”—Die Zeit At the opening of the exhibition sponsored by the State Center for Political Education of Lower Saxony at the Memorial site of the Bergen-Belsen camp one speaker said: “All persons depicted can only be mentioned on behalf of the many who were persecuted and tormented because they firmly held to their religious convictions and did not adapt to the National Socialist surroundings They are no remote and untouchable heroes but ordinary people and hence became good examples for our everyday life.”—Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung Three sets of this exhibition exist with about 50 panels each and they can be shown publicly under the following titles: “Jehovah’s Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault” (as an accompanying exhibition for the public presentation of the video documentary with the same title or with other films about this topic produced by non-Witnesses); “Forgotten Victims” (so far historians have been referring to Jehovah’s Witnesses as “forgotten victims of the Nazi regime”); and “Spiritual Resistance Out of Christian Conviction” (as was done as an accompanying exhibition of scientific forums with the same titles in Wewelsburg The basic idea for the exhibition’s panels stems from the French exhibition of the Cercle européen des Témoins de Jéhovah anciens déportés et internés (European Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses Former Concentration Camp Inmates) the contents of the German panels have been revised and expanded the exhibition was displayed at the world premiere of the German video documentary Jehovah’s Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault at the Ravensbrück Camp Memorial Museum The former Minister-President of the State of Brandenburg/Potsdam wrote for that occasion: “Your film screening is an important step toward informing the public about the role your religious association played under the Nazi regime.” Some 400 of the 567 presentations included a traveling exhibition about the forgotten victims at the opening of the exhibition in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt director of the State Center for Political Education of Baden-Württemberg stated: “All who resisted the Nazi regime—for whatever motive—deserve deep appreciation And an important group among them are Jehovah’s Witnesses to whom we owe respect respect which was somehow underexposed for a long time I am happy about this exhibition that can help compensate deficiencies I was already able to get a first positive impression when touring the exhibition I can also highly recommend the video documentary that I have already seen History cannot be a quarry from which we pick whatever suits us Jehovah’s Witnesses have a definite and exemplary place in the chapter that otherwise is the saddest chapter of our history.” the Watchtower Society in Germany produced additional panels with references to the locality of the exhibition for the city of Stuttgart and for the Bautzen Memorial Museum (Some memorial museums received extra panels on permanent loan.) The panels were also copied in full size for the premiere of the Russian Stand Firm version as well as for the premiere in Austria and the special exhibition “The Forgotten Victims,” on June 18 The branch offices of the Watch Tower Society in Sweden and Norway made electronic copies of some exhibition panels and presented them at the Nordisk Museum in the center of Stockholm on January 14 the panels were used and shown as a traveling exhibition in various cities This brochure only presents a selection of pictures and documents from the 50 three-dimensional panels a new collection of panels has been selected to be computerized and offered free of charge as a valuable set of computer print-outs for public presentations and classroom use We desire this exhibition to continue contributing to the formation of unbiased opinions on the part of all citizens