Is Dynamics the Content of a Generalized Motor Program for Rhythmic Interlimb Coordination?

Abstract

In 3 experiments, the author tested the hypothesis that coordination dynamics is the content of a generalized motor program (GMP) for rhythmic interlimb coordination. In Experiment 1, learners (N = 14) practiced a −90° movement with either identically timed or differently timed limbs. Both acquisition and transfer to novel (effector and pattern) timings were unaffected by the learning condition and were suggestive of the intrinsic dynamics for in-phase and antiphase. In Experiment 2, learners' (N = 13) acquisition of 2 different phase relations (−90° and −45°) was qualitatively identical. Attractor reconstruction revealed an increase in the predictability of individual movement trajectories and a decrease in attractor dimensionality over learning. Transfer for both −90° and −45° was again suggestive of the intrinsic dynamics. In Experiment 3, learning altered participants' (N = 8) performance of in-phase and antiphase relations. Together, the results suggested a single continuum of phase relations, called an attractor landscape, that produces similar patterns of CE and VE for both previously stable and learned coordinations.

Key Words:

• attractor
• coordination
• dynamics
• generalized motor program (GMP)
• learning

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Polemnia G. Amazeen

Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action University of Connecticut Department of Psychology, Arizona State University Tempe