Temporal and Spatial Characteristics in Repetitive Movement

Abstract

The question addressed is whether temporal or spatial characteristics of a movement sequence are represented in a motor program. Subjects executed one to five straight-line strokes as fast as possible on a digitizing tablet. The duration and length of each stroke were computed and intercorrelated. Nineteen out of 20 possible correlations were significant for length per stroke data while only one of the 20 correlations was significant for duration. Further, performance data on the five stroke patterns were sorted to examine whether the first stroke determined the overall temporal/spatial pattern of the subsequent strokes executed. It was found that only sorting by length of the first stroke produced different subsets of movement patterns. These results are argued to be in support of the hypothesis that the spatial microstructure is controlled in a prepared movement sequence.

Key Words:

• motor program
• motor control
• spatial control
• timing invariance