A comparison of intra- and inter-limb relative motion information in modelling a novel motor skill Gavin Breslin a , Nicola J. Hodges b, * , A. Mark Williams c , J. Kremer a , W. Curran a a School of Psychology, David Keir Building, Queen’s University Belfast, BT7 1NN, Ireland b School of Human Kinetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1 c Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, UK Available online 1 August 2006 Abstract The importance of intra- and inter-limb relative motion in modelling a whole body coordination skill was examined. Participants were assigned to one of four groups: Full-Body point light model of a cricket bowler, INTRA-LIMB relative motion of the bowling arm, INTER-LIMB relative motions of the right and left wrists or NO-Relative motion, showing only the motions of the right wrist. During 60 acquisition trials, participants viewed the model five times before each 10-trial block. Retention was examined the following day. Although all groups improved on intra-limb coordination of the bowling arm, the INTRA-LIMB and FULL-BODY groups were more accurate than the INTER-LIMB group in acquisition, although these groups did not differ in retention. For inter-limb coordination, the three groups who received relative motion information performed more like the model than the NO-Relative motion group (even though the INTRA-LIMB group did not see the other limb). The amount of information within a display plays a constraining role on acqui- sition, perhaps more so than the type of information, such that the acquisition of coordination is more an emergent feature of observational learning, rather than a direct approximation of the model. Ó 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 0167-9457/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.humov.2006.04.002 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 604 822 5895; fax: +1 604 822 6842. E-mail address: nicola.hodges@ubc.ca (N.J. Hodges). Human Movement Science 25 (2006) 753–766 www.elsevier.com/locate/humov