David A. Rosenbaum American Psychologist , 60(4) , 308–317

1. The Cinderella of Psychology:The Neglect of Motor Control in the Science of Mental Life and Behavior David A. Rosenbaum American Psychologist, 60(4), 308–317

2. Psychology: Defined Psychology is the science of mental life and behavior and should include the study of how people reach for and manipulate objects, walk around obstacles, and control movements required for speaking, writing, smiling, and gesturing. This should be viewed as a compliment to studies of perception, learning emotion, and development. Adapted from Rosenbaum (2005)

3. Motor Control involves A set of processes that enables the creature (living or artificial) to stablize or move the body or physical extensions of the body (tools) in desired ways” (Rosenbaum, 2002) Or maybe more simply, Translation of intentions into overt behaviors

4. What are the questions? How does one convert intention into overt behavior? • Examine anticipatory or preparatory events (errors) • Restrict preparation and examine the action consequences (temporal delays) How does our capacity for converting intention into overt behavior become quicker, more accurate, and more consistent? • Learning How does perception and action interact? • Distinction between closed and open-loop control

5. So why are psychologists not interested in Motor Control and Learning? • No celebrity hypothesis • Only human hypothesis • Dumb jock hypothesis • Too hard to study hypothesis • Think before you act hypothesis • Baby with the bathwater hypothesis • Neuroscientists have it covered hypothesis X X X X √ √ √

6. No celebrity hypothesis: Woodworth and Fitts

7. Only human hypothesis Basic premise is that humans move like lower order animals thus higher order mental activity is not necessary to study movement • But what about handwriting and keyboarding for example which are uniquely human and maybe more importantly speech production?

9. Dumb jock hypothesis Basic premise here is similar to previous point. However emphasis in this case is on the role of motor information being key source. • S-R compatibility effects • Coordinating hands is not movement problem Movement is not where the action is!

10. From: Mechsner, F., Kerzel, D., Knoblich, G., & Prinz, W. (2001). Perceptual basis of bimanual Coordination. Nature, 414, 69-73.

11. Too hard to study hypothesis The basic premise is that motor innervation, which appears to be root interest, is to difficult to measure. • Great strides have been made in tools to study movement control (see later section) • Great strides in understanding anticipatory or preparatory events have been made without elaborate technology

12. Think before you act hypothesis The basic premise here is that the mental events that occur before action should be studied first. Hence, perception, memory, and other like issues are at the heart of studies in psychology. • Perception changes as we move? So which comes first, action or perception? • What about the individual that when asked about characteristics of an object could not identify them but when reaching acted as though she know the characteristics?

15. Baby with the bathwater hypothesis The basic premise is that Behaviorism is to blame or more specifically its rejection. X INPUT (STIMULUS) OUTPUT (ACTION)

16. Neuroscientists have it covered hypothesis Why study a topic (motor control) when another group of researchers (neuroscientists) handles it well? • It is important then that we examine what neuroscientists have to say about motor control and learning – this has not been going on in Kinesiology until recently.