The intelligent reflex

ABSTRACT

The seeming distinction between motor and cognitive skills has hinged on the fact that the former are automatic and non-propositional (knowing-how), whereas the latter are slow and deliberative (knowing-that). Here, the physiological and behavioral phenomenon of long-latency stretch reflexes is used to show that “knowing-that” can be incorporated into “knowing-how,” either immediately or through learning. The experimental demonstration that slow computations can, with practice, be cached for fast retrieval, without the need for re-computation, dissolves the intellectualist/anti-intellectualist distinction: All complex human tasks, at any level of expertise, are a combination of intelligent reflexes and deliberative decisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Motor
• skill
• automaticity
• knowing how
• knowing what
• reflex

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Adrian Haith, Carlotta Pavese, and Andrew Pruszynski for helpful conversations and comments on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John W. Krakauer

John W. Krakauer is the John C. Malone Professor, and Professor of Neurology & Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the Co-director of the Brain, Learning, Animation and Movement Lab (www.BLAM-lab.org)