Testing Multiple Coordination Constraints with a Novel Bimanual Visuomotor Task

The acquisition of a new bimanual skill depends on several motor coordination constraints. To date, coordination constraints have often been tested relatively independently of one another, particularly with respect to isofrequency and multifrequency rhythms. Here, we used a new paradigm to test the interaction of multiple coordination constraints. Coordination constraints that were tested included temporal complexity, directionality, muscle grouping, and hand dominance. Twenty-two healthy young adults performed a bimanual dial rotation task that required left and right hand coordination to track a moving target on a computer monitor. Two groups were compared, either with or without four days of practice with augmented visual feedback. Four directional patterns were tested such that both hands moved either rightward (clockwise), leftward (counterclockwise), inward or outward relative to each other. Seven frequency ratios (3∶1, 2∶1, 3∶2, 1∶1, 2∶3. 1∶2, 1∶3) between the left and right hand were introduced. As expected, isofrequency patterns (1∶1) were performed more successfully than multifrequency patterns (non 1∶1). In addition, performance was more accurate when participants were required to move faster with the dominant right hand (1∶3, 1∶2 and 2∶3) than with the non-dominant left hand (3∶1, 2∶1, 3∶2). Interestingly, performance deteriorated as the relative angular velocity between the two hands increased, regardless of whether the required frequency ratio was an integer or non-integer. This contrasted with previous finger tapping research where the integer ratios generally led to less error than the non-integer ratios. We suggest that this is due to the different movement topologies that are required of each paradigm. Overall, we found that this visuomotor task was useful for testing the interaction of multiple coordination constraints as well as the release from these constraints with practice in the presence of augmented visual feedback

Anticipation and ontology

Anticipation has recently been rediscovered by psychologists as a fundamental aspect of human cognitive–motoric activity. Cognitive anticipation is connected to goal directedness and purposefulness of mental activity. Humans perceive and cogitate in service of goals and purposes, i.e. in an action-related and action-relevant way that gives special status to goals and anticipation. With this in mind, I suggest that there are three fundamental and distinct kinds of prototypical situational schemes, or naïve event ontologies, which are defined and distinguished by the underlying causal scheme. These three ontologies are characterized by prototypical anticipatory schemes

Representation of motor skills in human long-term memory

This study uses the example of the tennis serve to investigate the nature and role of long-term memory in skilled athletic performance. Information processing linked with complex movements has always been notoriously difficult to investigate. However, a new experimental method revealed that athletic expertise was characterized by well-integrated networks of so-called basic action concepts (BACs) that each corresponded to functionally meaningful submovements. In high-level experts, these representational frameworks were organized in a distinctive hierarchical tree-like structure, were remarkably similar between individuals and were well matched with the functional and biomechanical demands of the task. In comparison, action representations in low-level players and nonplayers were organized less hierarchically, were more variable between persons and were less well matched with functional and biomechanical demands. It is concluded that, in concert with situational goals and constraints, movement representations of this kind in long-term memory might provide the basis for action control in skilled voluntary movements in the form of suitably organized perceptual-cognitive reference structures. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

Eine neue Ästhetik für Architektur und Städtebau? Inspiration durch Ansätze zum "Embodied Mind"

Die Forderung und Frage nach einer "Schönheit der Stadt" berührt weit mehr Dimensionen als solche, die üblicherweise als "ästhetische" Dimensionen gelten. Wenn jemand sagt, dass eine Stadt für sie oder ihn "schön" ist, dann kann das in einem sehr generellen und umfassenden Sinn heißen, dass sie oder er sich dort wohl fühlt, gern dort lebt und arbeitet oder gern die Stadt besucht. Es wird abgehandelt, inwieweit ein Ästhetikbegriff so zu erweitern ist, dass er der Forderung und Frage einer "Schönheit der Stadt" in seiner Vieldimensionalität gerecht werden kann

Do muscles matter for coordinated action?

This article investigates coordination stability when 2 fingers of each hand periodically tap together. The main question concerns the functional origin of the symmetry tendency, which has widely been conceived as a bias toward coactivation of homologous fingers and homologous muscular portions. In Experiment 1, the symmetry tendency was independent of finger combination. In Experiment 2, virtually identical stability characteristics were revealed under full vision and no vision. In Experiment 3, symmetrical and parallel visual labels on the fingers neither stabilized nor destabilized symmetrical and parallel tapping patterns. In Experiment 4, in which the relative position of the hands was varied, it revealed that the observed stability characteristics are to be defined in a hand-centered reference frame. Because the symmetry tendency was always independent of finger combination, the authors suggest that it is not a bias toward coactivation of homologous muscle portions but instead originates on a more abstract, functional level