THE CLASSIFICATION OF MOTOR SKILLS

I. CONCEPT: classifying skills into general categories helps us to understand the demands those
skills place on the performer/learner
II. APPLICATION
a. We are born to move, but learn to move skillfully
b. Motor skills are the product of ACQUISITION
i. Elite athletes, professional musicians and dancers  movement control
ii. Ability to find new/better ways to perform ADLs
iii. Loss of coordination/control following injury, disease, and disability
c. We are dependent on the capacity to learn and perform motor skills
d. SKILL  capacity to control our bodies and the world around us; biological necessity
i. Degree of skill possessed is expressed through the ability to use movements to deal
with the many problems encountered on a daily basis
III. DISCUSSION
a. MOTOR SKILLS  activities or tasks that require voluntary control over movements of the
joints and body segments to achieve a goal
b. MOTOR LEARNING  acquisition of motor skills, the performance enhancement of
learned/highly experienced motor skills, or the reacquisition of skills that are difficult to
perform or cannot be performed because of injury, disease, etc.
i. Focus on behavioral/neurological changes that occur as a person learns a motor skill
and the variables that influence these changes
c. MOTOR CONTROL  how our neuromuscular system functions to activate and coordinate
the muscles and limbs involved in the performance of a motor skill
i. Can be investigated while learning a new skill or performing a well-learned or
highly experienced skill
d. MOTOR DEVELOPMENT  human development from infancy to old age with specific
interest in issues related to either motor learning or motor control
i. Emphasis on how processes (like growth and maturation) influence changes in
motor behavior
e. Motor skill performance is influenced by:
i. Motor skill
ii. Performance environment
iii. Physical and psychological characteristics of the person performing the skill
1. This assumption allows researchers to investigate questions about learning,
control, and development from behavioral/neurophysiological levels of study
a. BEHAVIORAL LEVEL  investigate questions by observing and analyzing
human behavior as it is affected by characteristics of any of the influences
IV. SKILLS, ACTIONS, MOVEMENTS, AND NEUROMOTER PROCESSES
a. SKILL
i. An activity or task that has a specific purpose or goal to achieve
ii. An indicator of quality of performance
b. 3 criteria are analyzed to determine where along the skill continuum a person’s
performance would be classified
i. Extent to which the person can consistently achieve the goal of the task
1. Highly skilled people show a greater capacity to consistently achieve the goal
ii. Extent to which the person can achieve the task under a range of different
conditions
iii. Degree of efficiency
 c. SKILLS AND ACTIONS
i. Purpose of motor skill = cause some type of change in the environment or in the
person’s relation to the environment
1. Purpose describes the specific problem for the mover to solve
2. [action = motor skill]
ii. COGNITIVE SKILL  requires mental activity, which includes decision making,
problem solving, remembering, etc.
1. Different from motor skill because it does NOT require voluntary limb
movement to achieve its goal
iii. CHARACTERISTICS OF SKILLS AND ACTIONS
1. Goal to achieve (action goal)
2. Performed voluntarily (NOT REFLEXES)
3. Requires movements of joints and body segments
4. Need to be learned or relearned
d. MOVEMENTS
i. Specific patterns of motion among joints and body segments
ii. The means by which action goals are accomplished or problems are solved
iii. A variety of movements can accomplish the same action goal
1. “many-to-one” relationship between movements and actions
a. Action goal is the same, but there are many ways to accomplish it
2. “one-to-many” relationship between movements and actions
a. One movement pattern could be used to achieve many different action
goals
e. NEUROMOTOR PROCESSES
i. Mechanisms within the central and peripheral nervous system, as well as the
muscular system, that underlie the control of movements and actions
ii. Can’t be observed, but can be measured
iii. “many-to-one” and “one-to-many”
V. WHY DISTINGUISH ACTIONS, MOVEMENTS, AND NEUROMOTOR PROCESSES
a. Actions (skills), movements, and neuromotor processes represent the order in which
motor control and learning are prioritized, thus highlighting what should be emphasized at
different stages of learning
i. 1st priority = understand the action goal and to explore strategies to achieve it
ii. 2nd priority = discover the best movement to accomplish the action goal given the
unique characteristics of the learner and environmental context
iii. 3rd priority = refine the movement and make it more efficient by modifying
neuromotor processes
b. Not all people can accomplish the action goal using the same movement pattern or
perform the same movement using the same neuromotor processes
i. Learners need to discover a movement pattern that is effective and efficient given
their unique characteristics
1. Body size, injuries, disabilities, abilities, fitness, prior learning, and
psychological attributes
c. Different measures are used to evaluate what’s happening at each level of study
i. Different measures might be taken to assess learning at different stages of practice
VI. ONE-DIMENSION CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS
a. Categorize skills according to one common characteristic
i. Divided into 2 categories which represent extreme ends of a spectrum
 ii. Continuum approach allows a skill to be classified in terms of which category the
skill characteristic is more like (rather than requiring that the characteristic fits into
one category exclusively)
1. Ex) “hot” vs. “cold”
b. 3 Motor Skill Classification Systems
i. Size of Primary Musculature Required
1. Primary muscle groups for walking vs. using chopsticks
2. Distinguishing skills based on the size of muscle groups required  gross and
fine motor skills
a. GROSS MOTOR SKILLS  using large musculature; less movement
precision
i. “fundamental motor skills”
b. FINE MOTOR SKILLS  require greater control of the small muscles;
hand-eye coordination
ii. Specificity of Where Actions Begin and End
1. DISCRETE MOTOR SKILL  motor skill with clearly defined movement
beginning and end points; usually requiring a simple movement
2. CONTINUOUS MOTOR SKILL  motor skill with arbitrary movement beginning
and end points; usually involve repetitive movements
3. SERIAL/SEQUENTIAL MOTOR SKILL  motor skill involving a series of
discrete skills
a. Includes the repetitive movements characteristic of continuous skills and
the specified beginning and end points of each movement that
characterize discrete skills
iii. Stability of the Environmental Context
1. ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT  the supporting surface, objects,
people/animals involved in the environment in which a skill is performed
2. STABILITY  whether the relevant environmental context features are
stationary (stable) or in motion (not stable)
a. CLOSED MOTOR SKILL  motor skill performed in a stationary
environment where the performer determines when to begin the action
i. Performer initiates the movements involved in performing the skill
when they are ready (“self-paced”)
b. OPEN MOTOR SKILL  motor skill performed in a moving environment
where the features of the environmental context in motion determines
when to begin the action
i. Performer must act according to the movement of a supporting
surface, object, or other people/animals
ii. Performers must time the initiation of their movement with an
external feature in the environment (“externally paced”)
VII. GENTILE’S TWO-DIMENSIONS TAXONOMY
a. One-dimension basis for classification doesn’t always capture the complexity of many
skills that need to be taken into account
b. Two-dimensions considers 2 characteristics:
i. Environmental context
ii. Function of the action
c. TAXONOMY  a classification system organized according to relationships among the
component characteristics of the group of items or objects being classified
d. A functional guide for PTs to assist them in assessing patients’ movements problems and
selecting functionally appropriate activities for these patients
i. This taxonomy is NOT limited to the PT context
ii. Can benefit everyone involved in teaching or training motor skills
e. ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT
i. Regulatory Conditions  features of the environmental context to which
movements must conform if they are to achieve the action goal; regulate spatial and
temporal aspects of the movement
1. Does not refer to characteristics of a person’s movements but only to
characteristics in the environmental context in which a skill is performed
2. Ex) different characteristics of the ways walking changes depending on the
environment
3. Regulatory conditions can be stationary (closed skills) or in motion (open
skills)
ii. INTERTRIAL VARIABILITY  environmental characteristic; whether the regulatory
conditions associated with the performance of a skill change or stay the same from
one trial to the next; can be “absent” or “present”
1. Absent = walking through an uncluttered room; regulatory conditions DON’T
change
2. Present = walking through a room where various objects are placed in different
spots every time a person walks through
3. Intertrial variability is almost always present when the environment is in
motion
a. The only time motion variability is absent from trial to trial is when the
motion is caused by a machine (a treadmill or a ball machine)
iii. RELATING THE 2 ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT CHARACTERISTICS
1. 2 x 2 diagram (regulatory conditions are either stationary or in motion;
intertrial variability is either present or absent)
2. Provides a more realistic way of understanding closed and open skills
f. NONREGULATORY CONDITIONS
i. Features of the environmental context that have no influence or only an indirect
influence on movement characteristics
ii. Can influence how skills are performed but not as directly as regulatory conditions
1. Color of an object, presence of spectators, weather conditions, performing
during the day or at night
2. Characteristics that can influence performance, but can’t determine movement
characteristics in the same way as regulator conditions
a. Color of a ball might influence how well it can be visually tracked and
how likely it is to be caught
b. Size and speed of the ball will precisely regulate the spatial and temporal
characteristics of the catching movement
i. Regardless of what body parts are used to catch the ball, the spatial
and temporal characteristics of the catching movement must
conform to the spatial and temporal characteristic of the ball
g. THE FUNCTION OF ACTION
i. 2nd dimension the taxonomy is based on; relates to the action goal
ii. Determine the function of an action by deciding whether or not the skill involves
holding or using an object
1. BODY ORIENTATION  changing or maintaining of body location
 a. Body Stability  skills that involve no change in body location during the
performance of the skill
b. Body Transport  includes active and passive changes in body locations
2. OBJECT MANIPULATION  maintaining or changing the position of an object
a. Holding or using an object
b. Skills that require object manipulation are more difficult to perform than
skills that involve no object manipulation because the person must do 2
things at once
i. Manipulate the object correctly
ii. Adjust body posture to accommodate for the imbalance created by
the object
h. THE SIXTEEN SKILL CATEGORIES
i. 4 environmental context characteristics x 4 action function characteristics
ii. Each skill category poses different demands on the performer in terms of the
characteristics and number of variables the performer needs to physically control
and pay attention IOT achieve the action goals
1. Skill categories are organized in terms of increasing complexity
a. Least demand of the performer = simplest; most demand = most complex
iii. Any motor skill must be considered in terms of the environmental context in which
it is performed and the functional role it plays when performed
iv. ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT DIMENSION includes the regulatory conditions to
which the performer of a skill must conform, and whether these conditions change
from one performance attempt to the next
v. ACTION FUNCTION DIMENSION establishes that all motor skills are performed to
serve a specific purpose or function; may require the maintaining or changing of the
performer’s body location and/or the maintaining or changing of the position of
objects
i. PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE TAXONOMY
i. Classifying skills provides insights into the demands that those skills place on the
performer
1. Classification = an early step in task analysis
2. Evaluate a learner’s movement capabilities and limitations
a. Can determine deficiencies by systematically altering environmental
contexts/ action functions to identify skill performance characteristics
that pose difficulty for an individual
ii. Valuable tool for systematically selecting a progression of functionally appropriate
activities to help the person overcome their deficits and increase their skill
performance capabilities
1. Emphasizes the complementary part of the rehab/skill training process
iii. Charting the individual progress of patients as they work to attain their goals
1. Create a “profile of competencies” to aid in the assessment of the effectiveness
of the rehab or instructional program that is developed
a. “simple-to-complex” progression of skills  provides an objective basis
for determining progress in overcoming skill performance deficits and
increasing skill performance capabilities
CORE PROBLEMS
I. FOUR CORE PROBLEMS OF MOTOR CONTROL RESEARCH
a. “Degrees of Freedom Problem”  how are movements selected to achieve particular
tasks when, as is almost always the case, infinitely many movements can achieve those
tasks?
b. “Sequencing and Timing Problem”  how are behaviors ordered in time?
c. “Perceptual-Motor Integration Problem”  how are perception and motor control
combined?
d. “Learning Problem”  how are perceptual-motor skills acquired?
II. THE DEGREES OF FREEDOM PROBLEM
a. There are many possible ways to perform a simple task
b. There are an infinite number of ways of getting things done
c. WHOSE PROBLEM IS THE DEGREES OF FREEDOM PROBLEM?
i. Having many possible ways of performing a task gives you the option of
performing the task in a way that makes sense at the moment
ii. An opportunity to adapt to changing environmental conditions
iii. Problem = understanding how particular actions are chosen when many are
possible
d. WHY THE TERM “DEGREES OF FREEDOM”?
i. The degrees of freedom in a system are the number of ways the system can
independently vary
1. Generating a physical action generally involves going from many possible
degrees of freedom to just the few that characterize the task that is
selected
ii. The degrees of freedom problem is multifaceted
1. Applies to KINEMATICS (positions in time) and KINETICS (forces in time)
2. Applies to the mapping of neural activity to muscle activity
e. SYNERGIES
i. “interactions”
ii. In principle, synergies can reduce the number of degrees of freedom that must be
independently controlled
iii. What kinds of synergies exist in the motor system?
1. You can’t keep your eyes open when you sneeze  one kind of motor
activity can automatically dictate what other activities may occur
a. Coordination within a limb
2. Wrist and elbow rotations  there are functional linkages between
different parts of the body; these linkages have an effect on what
movements can and cannot be done at the same time
a. Coordination within a limb
iv. Coordination between limbs
1. It is difficult to rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time
a. Making circular stomach rubs corrupts your attempt at patting
your head with straight up and down hand motions
2. When people make rhythmic movements with their two hands, the
frequency of one hand’s movement affects the frequency of the other
hand’s movement
v. Coupled body parts
1. The activity of one extremity affects the activity of the other extremity
vi. Do synergies actually eliminate degrees of freedom to be controlled?
 1. Typically, they do not – though they can bias the neuro-motor system to
perform in certain ways rather than others
vii. Synergies can be viewed as fallback ways of performing
1. When these default methods are appropriate, they may be carried out
because they are preferred
viii. When alternate ways of performing are called for, they usually can be carried out
(though not so easily or well)
1. This is why blinking while sneezing is not a synergy; when you sneeze,
you must blink
2. A hard constraint  blinking while sneezing is not a default option that
can be overcome at will
3. Synergy = soft constraint  it can help reduce the degrees of freedom to
be independently managed but is not absolutely mandatory
f. RELYING ON MECHANICS
i. Physical properties of the body can eliminate the need to control each feature of
neuro-motor control
1. Ex: walking
a. When we walk, each of our legs goes through 2 main phases
(stance and swing)
b. The forward swing can be achieved without concurrent muscle
activation; the forward swing doesn’t need to be planned or
controlled in detail  can be produced simply by taking advantage
of the physical properties of the leg within the gravitational field
c. Relying on physical mechanics in this way eliminates the need to
generate just the right commands at the right time
g. EFFICIENCY
i. The movements we make are usually more efficient than the movements we
don’t make
1. The reason you don’t snake your arm around your head to touch your
nose is that the snaking movement is less efficient than the more direct
movement
ii. It is a bad idea to end a movement with the limb adopting extreme joint angles
1. Having your arm in the middle of its range of motion at the end of a
movement, your subsequent possible movements can be maximally
diverse
iii. People will deliberately adopt awkward initial postures when taking hold of
objects if those initially awkward postures let them end the maneuvers in
comfortable or easy-to-control final postures
iv. Ending in a comfortable posture is one efficiency constraint
v. The tendency to move smoothly when going from one position to another
1. Appears to reflect an efficiency constraint related to the avoidance of jerky
movements
2. Movements may reflect a constraint to minimize the mean squared rate of
change of acceleration over movement time
III. THE SEQUENCING AND TIMING PROBLEM
a. SPEECH ERRORS
i. Spoonerisms  speech errors involving the exchange of two speech sounds in
analogous word positions
 1. Commonness of spoonerisms is reflected not just in the fact that all of us
make such errors from time to time
ii. What do speech errors tell us about the control of sequencing?
1. The switch in consonants is typically systematic
2. Generally, consonants only exchange with other consonants; vowels
exchange with vowels
3. Nouns tend to exchange with other nouns; verbs exchange with other
verbs
iii. There are distinct levels of representation in the planning and production of
speech
1. Level involving whole words  syntactic status (nouns vs. verbs)
2. Level involving individual phenomes  distinction between consonants
and vowels
iv. The kinds of speech errors that people make indicate that speech is not simply
produced by planning and then executing one utterance at a time
1. Instead, a plan is set up for an extended sequence of forthcoming
utterances
v. Errors like those in speech also occur in other domains of performance
1. Bodily actions are based on plans with distinct functional levels
2. Problems arise because an abstract description of the task to be achieved
exists in the mind of the actor
3. The specifics of the task situation are momentarily misidentified, leading
to these kinds of mistakes  ACTION SLIPS
b. COARTICULATION
i. Inferences about serial order are based on mistakes and accurate performance
ii. Anticipatory lip rounding  suggests that a plan exists for an entire word before
the word is produced
1. Illustrates a general tendency of effectors to coarticulate
iii. Coarticulation  simultaneous motions that occur in sequential tasks
1. Occurs in anticipatory lip rounding and nasalization (producing a speech
sound that occurs when the speaker allows air to pass from the lungs
through the nasal cavities)
iv. Coarticulation is language-dependent
1. Must account for psychological and physiological constraints
v. Coarticulation is not restricted to speech
1. When typing, both hands move continually; the fingers of each hand move
toward their respective keyboard targets, even while other keys are
struck
2. When reaching for objects, the same object is grasped differently
depending on where the object will be placed
a. Permitting comfortable/easy-to-control final postures
vi. Coarticulation is an effective means for increasing response speed
c. TIMING
i. Even when there is no real reason why movements should be synchronized with
perceptual events, they often are
1. When people tap their finger in time with a metronome, their finger taps
slightly lead the metronome clicks
2. Delays between the taps and the clicks suggest that participants try to
make the feedback from their taps coincide with the sounds of the clicks
IV. THE PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR INTEGRATION PROBLEM
a. FEEDBACK
i. Almost all aiming movements proceed in two stages
1. Rapid BALLISTIC phase
a. Can’t be altered once they have been initiated
b. Fast and cover most of the distance to the target; if the target isn’t
reached, feedback is used to correct the error
2. Slower CORRECTIVE phase
ii. Negative feedback loop (“servomechanism”)  to correct errors based on
feedback
1. Reference signal  provides input to the loop about the target or goal
state
2. Plant  responsible for converting control signals into output
3. Comparator  measures the discrepancy between the sensed position of
the effector and the reference signal; used to negate error
iii. Positive feedback loop  feedback leads to larger errors instead of smaller ones
iv. Closed-loop control  when feedback returns to the comparator
1. Negative closed-loop  the feedback lets you reduce the distance
between your hand and the target
2. Positive closed-loop  the feedback makes it harder for you to reduce the
distance between your hand and the target
v. Open-loop control  occurs when feedback is unavailable
1. Feedback loop is opened up and no info can get through about the
success/failure of performance
b. FEEDFORWARD
i. when performance is consistently accurate though feedback is removed; the
accuracy of performance provides an indication of the accuracy of the
performer’s feedforward control
1. Many movement sequences can be performed surprisingly well
2. Gross features of some movements can be performed under feedforward
control
a. When these same movements are performed with feedback,
however, they are usually performed more precisely and gracefully
b. Suggests that everyday movements reflect the combined use of
feedforward and feedback
ii. Feedforward cannot be inferred only by removing feedback
iii. Helps distinguish perceptual changes due to motion arising in the external
environment from perceptual changes arising from one’s own motions
1. Occurs by subtracting perceptual changes caused by motor commands (or
internal perceptual representations leading to motor commands) from
perceptual changes caused by changes in the external environment
iv. Reafference  the perceptual consequence of one’s own actions
v. Exafference  perceptual input arising from outside influence
c. MOVEMENT ENHANCES PERCEPTION
i. Movement allows for the transport of sensory receptors
ii. In some cases, movement makes it possible to see at all
iii. The human brain has two systems for seeing
1. One for identifying objects (“what” system)
 2. One for interacting with objects in a physically appropriate manner
(“how” system)
d. MOVEMENT INFORMS PERCEPTION
i. Steepness of a hill was perceived in terms of how much effort would be needed to
scale it
1. The hill’s apparent steepness reflected its perceived AFFORDANCE for
climbing
ii. Visual perception of slant is EMBODIED  the way the environment is perceived
is mediated by what we see we can do in the environment
e. MIRROR NEURONS
i. Neurons fired when actions animals could perform were mirrored in action
witnessed in others
ii. Humans appear to have neurons that fire both when people perform actions and
when they see others perform those same actions
iii. Also suggested that mirror neurons reflect learning
V. THE LEARNING PROBLEM
a. How are motor skills acquired?
b. LEARNING BY DOING
i. The only way to learn what the perceptual changes that accompany the
movements we make are, short of being innately equipped with knowledge of
them, is to explore them via active exploration
ii. Growing children need more than movement alone or perception alone to
develop normal visuo-motor coordination
1. They need to be able to actively control these 2 kinds of experience to
learn what their correlation is
iii. Learning by doing amounts to forming correlations between movements and
perceptions
c. LEARNING BY PRACTICING DELIBERATELY
i. Skill development is aided by practicing often and with concentration on those
aspects of performance that need improvement
1. The amount of deliberate practice one devotes to a skill accounts for how
well the skill develops
ii. In terms of education of skills, coaches should encourage students to practice in a
concerted way
1. Coaches should have their students focus on what needs to be improved,
and encourage their students to put tin the time to achieve those
improvements
iii. Practicing with dogged determination for hours on end without a break will
probably not pay off
1. Massed practice (practice without breaks) is generally worse than spaced
practice (practice with breaks)
iv. There is a clear intellectual component to skill acquisition
1. Rote practice does little good as contrasted with focused exploration of
alternative ways of performing
d. LEARNING THROUGH SPECIFICITY OF PRACTICE
i. Things that are learned in skill learning is often surprisingly specific
ii. Specificity of practice  instead of learning something general that extends in a
graded, uniform fashion, people learn something incredibly specific
1. “home field advantage”
 e. LEARNING THROUGH NEURAL PLASTICITY
i. Need to understand the tradeoff between the capacity for generalization on the
one hand and the benefit of specific training on the other
1. Need to be able to apply skills that have been practiced in new
environments
ii. Neural plasticity study  found large difference in the amount of neural tissue
devoted to specific functions within the brains of different animals
1. The amount of neural tissue devoted to a given function is more or less the
same in every member of a species
2. Hypothesized that the brain might be “plastic” or changeable
a. More neural tissue comes to be devoted to often-experienced
functions than to less-experienced functions
iii. When a finger was amputated, the neurons gradually responded to touch on the
adjacent fingers
1. This experiment provided evidence for neural plasticity
2. Neurons in the somatosensory cortex did not respond in a fixed fashion,
but instead responded in a way that changed with experience
3. Index- and ring-finger inputs take over the middle-finger region
iv. The amount of somatosensory cortex devoted to touch received from the tips of
the left hand is enlarged in violinists compared to non-violinists (this difference
grows with practice)
1. Indicates that neural plasticity occurs in humans and monkeys
v. Neural plasticity can come about through positive means (learning), not just
negative means (amputations)
vi. Neural plasticity ensures economical use of the brain
1. No part of the brain stands idle if it can potentially serve some purpose
2. All of our brains are continually in use, with each part finding a purpose
for which it is optimally suited given the nature of personal experience
MOTOR CONTROL THEORIES
I. APPLICATION
a. Must coordinate various muscles and joints to function together IOT perform a wide
variety of motor skills
i. Muscle and joint combos differ for many skills
b. Motor skill performance has other important general characteristics in addition to body
and limb coordination
i. Perform some skills with relatively slow movements
ii. Other skills require fast, ballistic movements
iii. Some skills have few component parts and others are very complex
c. We can produce remarkable accurate and consistent movement patterns from one
performance attempt to another
i. Capable of performing well-learned skills with a high degree of success in a
variety of situations – even if we haven’t performed them before
II. THEORY AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
a. WHAT IS A THEORY
i. Helps us understand phenomena and explains the reasons why these phenomena
exist or behave as they do
ii. Theories are developed to help us understand various aspects of the physical
universe in which we live
 1. Provide explanations of observable physical events  allow us to predict
how these events will play out
iii. In behavioral sciences, theories focus on explaining human behavior
1. In the case of performance and learning motor skills, theories provide
explanations about why people perform skills as they do
a. Identifying the variables that account for the performance
characteristics we observe
2. A good theory of motor control will explain why this capability is possible
b. THE RELEVANCE OF MOTOR CONTROL THEORY FOR THE PRACTITIONER
i. Understanding motor control allows the practitioner to develop effective skill
and instruction and practice environments
ii. If we know why people can adapt to a variety of situations when they perform a
motor skill, we can use that knowledge to develop practice conditions
III. MOTOR CONTROL THEORY
a. A good theory of motor control should describe and explain how the nervous system
produces coordinated movement such that we are able to successfully perform a variety
of motor skills in a variety of environmental contexts
i. The attempt to understand how we produce coordinated movement is similar to
wanting to know how a watch, which also involves the precise coordination of
many components, keeps time
b. Two essential issues important to a theory of motor control
i. The meaning of the term “coordination” as it applies to motor skill performance
ii. The “degrees of freedom” problem
c. The theories address motor control from a mostly behavioral level of analysis  they
focus on explaining observed behavior without attempting to specify neural-level
features of the control process
d. Goal of behaviorally based motor control theories  propose laws and principles that
govern coordinated human motor behavior
i. A neural level theory would be expected to describe neural mechanisms/neural
mechanism interactions that explain how the nervous system is involved in these
behavioral principles
e. COORDINATION
i. The performance of a motor skill involves a person’s organization of the
activation of muscles in a way that the goal of the action can be accomplished
ii. “The patterning of body and limb motions relative to the patterning of
environmental objects and events”
1. The definition specifies that coordination involves patterns of head, body,
and/or limb movements (regardless of the performer’s skill level)
a. Should not be limited to its relation to a characteristic of skilled
performance
2. The pattern of motion is relative to the pattern of environmental objects
and events  establishes the need to consider motor skill coordination in
relation to the context in which the skill is performed
f. THE DEGREES OF FREEDOM PROBLEM
i. How does the nervous system control the many muscles and joints involved in
producing a given pattern?
ii. Degrees of freedom  the number of independent elements or components in a
control system and the number of ways each component can act
 iii. Degrees of freedom problem  a control problem that occurs in the designing of
a complex system that must produce a specific result
1. The design problem involves determining how to constrain the system’s
many degrees of freedom so that it can produce the specific result
IV. OPEN-LOOP AND CLOSED-LOOP CONTROL SYSTEMS
a. Both systems are based on mechanical engineering models of control
b. Basic descriptions of different ways the central and peripheral nervous systems initiate
and control action
c. OPEN-LOOP CONTROL SYSTEM  all of the info needed to initiate and carry out an
action as planned is contained in the initial instructions to the effectors
d. CLOSED-LOOP CONTROL SYSTEM  during the course of an action, feedback is
compared against a standard/reference to enable and action to be carried out as
planned
e. Both systems include:
i. CONTROL CENTER/EXECUTIVE  generate and issue movement instructions to
the effectors
ii. EFFECTORS  the muscles and joints involved in producing the desired
movement
iii. MOVEMENT INSTRUCTIONS  come from the control center and go to the
effectors
f. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SYSTEMS
i. Closed-loop system involves FEEDBACK; open-loop system doesn’t
1. FEEDBACK  information from the sensory system that indicates the
status of movement to the central nervous system; used to make
corrections to an ongoing movement
2. Afferent info sent by various sensory receptors to the control center about
the “correctness” of the movement while it is in progress
3. Can come from the head/body/limbs, visual receptors, auditory receptors,
etc.
ii. Movement Instructions
1. In the open-loop system, the instructions contain all the info needed for the
effectors to carry out a planned movement
a. Feedback is produced and available, but it isn’t used to control the
ongoing movement
2. In the closed-loop system, the control center issues an initial instruction to
the effectors that is only enough to initiate movement
a. The actual execution and completion of the movement depends on
feedback info that reaches the control center
3. Feedback provides info about the status of the movement; allows the
control center to do several things:
a. Allow the movement to continue as initially instructed
b. Provide additional instructions to continue the movement in progress
c. Correct a movement error
V. TWO THEORIES OF MOTOR CONTROL
a. Theories that emphasize instructions from the CNS in the control process have a
common form of memory representation (like a motor program) that provides the basis
for organizing, initiating, and carrying out intended actions
b. Other theories emphasize movement instructions specified by the environment and the
dynamic interaction of this info with the body, limbs, and nervous system
c. MOTOR PROGRAM-BASED THEORY
i. MOTOR PROGRAM  a memory representation that stores info needed to
perform an action
1. Limited to specific movements or sequenced of movements
ii. SCHMIDT’S GENERALIZED MOTOR PROGRAM  the general memory
representation of a class of actions that share common invariant characteristics
1. Provides the basis for controlling a specific action within the class of
actions
2. INVARIANT FEATURES  a unique set of characteristics that defines a
generalized motor program and doesn’t vary from one performance of the
action to another
3. In order to produce a specific action to meet the demands of a performance
situation, a person must retrieve the appropriate program from memory
and then add movement-specific parameters
4. PARAMETERS  the features of a skill that must be added to the invariant
features of a generalized motor program before a person can perform a
skill to meet the specific demands of a situation
iii. INVARIANT FEATURES AND PARAMETERS
1. 3 most common characteristics that could be invariant features of the
generalized motor program:
a. Relative time (rhythm) of the components of the skill
i. The proportion of the total amount of time required by each of the
various components of a skill during the performance of that skill
b. Relative force used in performing the skill
c. Order/sequence of the components
2. Parameters  features that can be varied between performances of skills
a. Overall force
b. Overall duration
c. Muscles used to perform the skill
iv. SCHMIDT’S SCHEMA THEORY
1. Theory of how the generalized motor program operates to control
coordinated movement
2. SCHEMA  a rule/set of rules that serves to provide the basis for a
decision
a. Developed by abstracting important pieces of info from related
experiences and combining them into a type of rule
3. Used to describe two control components involved in learning and control
of skills
a. Generalized motor program
b. Motor response schema  responsible for providing the specific rules
governing an action in a given situation
4. Provides an explanation for how well a person can adapt to new situations
or environmental contexts
5. Claims to solve the degrees of freedom problem in movement coordination
a. Through an executive control operation that organizes motor
programs and schemas
6. The generalized motor program and recall schema work together to
provide specific movement characteristics needed to initiate an action in a
given situation
d. DYNAMIC PATTERN THEORY
i. An approach to describing and explaining the control of coordinated movement
that emphasizes the role of information in the environment and the dynamic
properties of the body and limbs
ii. Human movement control is a complex system that behaves in ways similar to
those of a complex biological or physical system
iii. Seen from the perspective of NONLINEAR DYNAMICS  a behavior that changes
in abrupt, nonlinear ways in response to a systematic linear increase in the value
of a specific variable
1. The change from smooth to turbulent water flow in a tube at a specific
increase in water velocity
2. The change from a walking to a running gait at a specific increase in gait
velocity
iv. NONLINEAR CHANGES IN MOVEMENT BEHAVIOR
1. The systematic change in the level of a variable can cause a nonlinear
behavioral change in human coordinated movement
2. OUT OF PHASE (ANTIPHASE)  the muscle groups controlling the limbs
were operating simultaneously but in opposite ways
a. At a critical speed, the finger movement spontaneously shifted to an
IN-PHASE coordination state
3. Shift to the in-phase coordination state occurred during the TRANSITION
between the stable out-of-phase and in-phase states
a. A linear increase in movement speed led to a nonlinear change in the
fundamental pattern of movement
4. Distinct coordination patterns can spontaneously develop as a function of a
change in a specific variable
e. STABILITY AND ATTRACTORS
i. STABILITY  a behavioral steady state of a system that represents a preferred
behavioral state and incorporates the notion of invariance by noting that a stable
system will spontaneously return to a stable state after it is slightly perturbed
ii. ATTRACTORS (ATTRACTOR STATES)  the stable behavioral steady states of
systems; stable regions of operation around which behavior typically occurs
when a system is allowed to operate in its preferred manner
1. Characterize preferred behavioral states, such as in-phase and out-of-
phase states for rhythmic bimanual finger movements
2. Preferred behavioral states
3. Optimally ENERGY-EFFICIENT states  when a person is moving at a
preferred rate or using a preferred coordination pattern, they are using
less energy than they would if they were moving at a non-preferred rate
f. ORDER AND CONTROL PARAMETERS
i. ORDER (COLLECTIVE) PARAMETER
1. Functionally specific variables that define the overall behavior of a system
a. Enable a coordinated pattern of movement to be reproduced and
distinguished from other patters
2. Most prominent order parameter  RELATIVE PHASE
a. A quantified value that represents the movement relationship between
two movement segments
ii. CONTROL PARAMETER
 1. Coordinated movement control variable (tempo, speed, force) that freely
change according to the characteristics of an action situation
a. According to the dynamic pattern view of motor control – when a
control parameter is systematically varied (ex: speed increased from
slow to fast) an order parameter may remain stable or change its
stable state characteristics at a certain level of change of the control
parameter
2. The variable that, when increased or decreased, will influence the stability
and character of the order parameter
3. Important variable to identify because it becomes the variable to
manipulate IOT assess the stability of the order parameter
a. Provides the basis for determining attractor states for patterns of limb
movement
4. Can be the basis for assessing the stability of a coordination pattern
a. May provide insights into a person’s coordination characteristics that
might not otherwise be observed
iii. SELF-ORGANIZATION
1. The emergence of a specific stable pattern of a behavior due to certain
conditions characterizing a situation rather than to a specific control
mechanism organizing the behavior
a. Example: hurricanes self-organize when certain wind and water
temperature conditions exist
g. COORDINATIVE STRUCTURES
i. Functionally specific collective of muscles and joints that are constrained by the
nervous system to act cooperatively to produce an action
ii. Skilled action results when a person’s nervous system constrains functionally
specific synergies of muscles and joints to act cooperatively so that a person can
carry out an action according to the characteristics of the situations
iii. Can develop these functional synergies through practice/experience or they may
exist naturally
1. Example: grasping an object
iv. Intrinsic coordinative structures  walking, running, bimanual coordination
1. Can lead to initial performance difficulties; after overcoming these
difficulties, the performance skill will benefit from the newly developed
coordinative structure
a. Allows the person to achieve an action goal even through some slight
perturbations during the action
v. Coordinative structures developed through practice  tennis serve
vi. PERCEPTION-ACTION COUPLING
1. Interaction between perceptual and movement variables that results in
specific movement dynamics of an action in accordance with specific
characteristics of the perceptual variable
2. Essential element in accounting for skillful performance of open skills
3. Perception = detect and use critical invariant info in the environment
4. Action = the setting and regulating of movement control features that
enable the person to achieve the action goal
5. Example: time to contact between an object and a person’s eye (steering a
car, catching a ball, jumping from a platform)
VI. THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CONTROL THEORY ISSUE
a. Debate between the motor-program based theory and the dynamic pattern theory has
caused critical issues to be clarified and future directions to become more evident
i. Now we know that a theory of motor control can’t focus exclusively on the
movement info that is specified by the CNS
1. Theorists must also take task and environmental characteristics into
account
2. The optimal pattern of coordination is determined by the interaction
among constraints specified by the person, environment, and task
(Newell’s Model)
b. Opinions vary in terms of resolution of the motor control theory debate
i. Some researchers foresee a compromise between the two theories
1. Would lead to the development of a hybrid theory that incorporated the
strengths of both theories
ii. The application of specific aspects of a dynamic pattern theory to the generalized
motor program theory could account for performance characteristics associated
with the acquisition of rhythmic bimanual coordination skills that the generalized
motor program theory alone could not
c. Some argue that a hybrid theory is unlikely
i. Compromise theory couldn’t emerge because the two theories represent two
vastly different approaches to explaining the control of coordinated movement
1. Because of this difference, the history of science would predict that one will
eventually become the predominant theory
d. No predominance has been established yet