title: Sequential pointing in children and adults.
abstract: The development of visuomotor control in sequential pointing was investigated in 6- to 10-year-old children and in adults. In 3 experiments we manipulated task difficulty by changing the number, the size, and the spacing of the targets in the sequences. In Experiment 4, only 1 movement was required; we varied independently the distance between targets and the distance of the starting point from the participant's body. Children's temporal and spatial parameters of the motor sequences showed large age-dependent trends, but did not reach the adult values. Comparison of performance across levels of difficulty and ages suggests that motor development is not a uniform fine-tuning of stable strategies. Instead, we argue that each stage of development is best characterized by the set of strategic components potentially available at that stage, and by the (age-dependent) rules for the selection of components in a given context.
authors.affiliation: FPSE, University of Geneva, Carouge, Switzerland. Maryse.Badan@hcuge.ch
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Badan
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Hauert
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mounoud
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time