title: A psychological approach to human voluntary movement.
abstract: The author argues that movements are planned, executed, and stored in memory as perceptible events, without regard to efferent patterns. Spontaneous bimanual coordination phenomena are hypothesized to originate on a perceptual-cognitive level, with the muscles automatically tuned in service to preferred perceptible movement properties. The perceptual-cognitive system is hypothesized to control skilled complex movements as well. In perceptual-cognitive control, the full potential of the perceptual-cognitive system could be exploited. Thus, movements could be enormously flexible, with a strong potential for improvisation and creativity. An effective representation might be organized in a surprisingly sparse and economic way. In sum, the author argues that a psychological approach is most promising as a possible unifying perspective for understanding human voluntary movements.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Occupational Physiology, Ardeystrasse 67, D-44139 Dortmund, Germany. mechsner@ifado.de
authors.forename: Franz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mechsner
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D009068:Movement; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014836:Volition