The Effects of Viewing Angle on the Acquisition, Retention and Recognition of a Complex Dance Sequence

The benefits of observing a model when acquiring a new motor skill are well known, however, there is little research on the influence of viewing angle of the model. The purpose of the present experiment was to assess whether a looking-glass (face on) or subjective (facing away) viewing angle would result in different acquisition and retention levels when learning a complex Zumba dance sequence. Greater cognitive effort was expected during the looking-glass condition, consequently resulting in slower acquisition but greater physical performance scores and error recognition/identification. Thirty females were evenly divided into the looking-glass or subjective group and began with the pre-test phase to assess degrees of motivation, self-efficacy, and physical performance. Participants were then lead through six acquisition dances, within which they performed the to-be-learned sequence 18 times. An assessment of cognitive effort followed, then post-test performances and error recognition/identification scores were obtained to conclude the study. While both the looking-glass and subjective conditions demonstrated equal rates of acquisition (p>.05), the looking-glass group performed significantly fewer errors during the post-test (p<.05) and were significantly better at identifying errors when a video of the dance sequence was shown from the same viewing angle as the acquisition phase (p<.05). No differences were reported between the two conditions with respect to cognitive effort (p>.05). Based on the results of this study, the looking-glass viewing angle appears to result in better learning of a dance sequence, but cannot be explained by cognitive effort