The science of immediate vs. delayed feedback for learning a mountain biking skill may surprise you

Too much instruction can be as bad as no instruction? Maybe

I first learned about a different way to give and receive feedback when learning a motor skill from Tim Gallwey in his Inner Games books on tennis, golf, and skiing/snowboarding. He writes:

The quality of learning is directly proportionate to the quality of feedback one receives from experience… The more active the mind, the less feedback the body will receive, and the slower it will learn. The key to natural learning is to quiet the mental activity so that awareness is increased.

And:

I was beginning to learn what all good pros and students of tennis must learn: that images are better than words, showing better than telling, too much instruction worse than none, and that trying often produces negative results.

I was reminded of some of Gallwey’s principles last week when I stumbled on a GMB Fitness article titled, Learn Movement Skills Faster with these 5 Motor Learning Strategies.

Strategy #1: Delay Technical Feedback

The author, Jarlo Ilano, writes:

On the surface, this particular feedback of your performance—the technical term is Knowledge of Results (KR)—given during or immediately after a skill would seem to improve skill performance better than delayed KR. This seems logical—of course you’ll do better when you can correct your errors as soon as you make them.

It’s been found, though, that immediate KR improves only short-term performance, whereas delayed KR leads to better long-term retention of the skill.

Why would this be so?

The theory is that immediate feedback interferes with the brain’s information processing of all the sensory and motor pattern reactions during and after the skill performance. The motor learning you would have gotten from “messing up” and giving yourself feedback later on is interrupted by the immediate feedback you’re getting.

In essence, immediate feedback is a crutch upon which you become unknowingly dependent.

The article doesn’t explain the “recording and getting feedback later” caption in the above image. But the implication seems clear: analyzing the video of your practice session (either by yourself or with someone else) when you get home is a type of delayed feedback that’s generally better for long-term memory retention than constant immediate feedback from someone else during a practice session.

The findings about immediate feedback improving short-term learning and delayed feedback improving long-term learning rang two bells for me:

1. Progress from massed practice (nothing but repetitions) in a practice session is often fleeting because it depends on short-term rather than long-term memory

2. Reflection is a powerful practice strategy, and it can include delayed feedback via video review

As for Gallwey’s contention that too much instruction can be worse than none, it appears that that’s hyperbole. There is a middle road, according to this research paper:

Optimizing Feedback Frequency in Motor Learning: Self-Controlled and Moderate Frequency KR Enhance Skill Acquisition

These results indicated that both self-control and moderate frequency feedback enhanced learning, supporting an inverted U-shaped effect of feedback frequency on skill acquisition.

What’s an ‘inverted U-shaped effect’? This graphic explains the generic concept:

The implication from the research seems to be that too much feedback can be as problematic as no feedback. There is a middle road.

Gallwey’s fear, however, is a legitimate one, methinks. He writes:

In short, if we let ourselves lose touch with our ability to feel our actions, by relying too heavily on instructions, we can seriously compromise our access to our natural learning processes and our potential to perform.