The Effect of Task and Environment Constraints on Aquatic Locomotor Behavior: Qualitative Data Analysis

Many constraints (environmental, organismic, and task) act on all patterns of motor coordination, although their effects on swimming is less well understood. To this end, we carried out the current study with fifty-six participants, ages ranging from six to twelve years. The experimental tasks were created from the original task in which changes in task speed and environmental context were manipulated. Four aspects in the results were notable: a) a main trend was one of performance with the same developmental status among the tasks; b) when behaviour changed, this occurred due to environmental constraints, leading to more rudimentary patterns of locomotion; c) the developmental status presented initially was associated with greater adaptative capacity in the task combining change in direction and speed; in this case participants with more advanced developmental status presented changes in sequencing as well as parameters; and d) when only speed was increased, changes were restricted to the parameters.