Non-representational Sensorimotor Knowledge

Exposure to task-irrelevant feedback leads to perceptual learning, but its effect on motor learning has been understudied. Here we asked human participants to reach a visual target with a hand-controlled cursor while observing another cursor moving independently in a different direction. While the task-irrelevant feedback did not change the main task's performance, it elicited robust savings in subsequent adaptation to classical visuomotor rotation perturbation. We demonstrated that the saving effect resulted from a faster formation of strategic learning through a series of experiments, not from gains in the implicit learning process. Furthermore, the saving effect was robust against drastic changes in stimulus features (i.e., rotation size or direction) or task types (i.e., for motor adaptation and skill learning). However, the effect was absent when the task-irrelevant feedback did not carry the visuomotor relationship embedded in visuomotor rotation. Thus, though previous research on perceptual learning has related task-irrelevant feedback to changes in early sensory processes, our findings support its role in acquiring abstract sensorimotor knowledge during motor learning. Motor learning studies have traditionally focused on task-relevant feedback, but our study extends the scope of feedback processes and sheds new light on the dichotomy of explicit and implicit learning in motor adaptation as well as motor structure learning.

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Ineffabilities of Making Music: An Exploratory Study

Journal of Phenomenological Psychology ◽

10.1163/15691624-90000003 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 9-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Daniel A. Schmicking

Keyword(s):

Exploratory Study ◽

Musical Instrument ◽

Verbal Interaction ◽

Embodied Perception ◽

Fine Grained ◽

Sensorimotor Knowledge ◽

A Performance

Some facets of making music are explored by combining arguments of Raffman's cognitivist explanation of ineffability with Merleau-Ponty's view of embodied perception. Behnke's approach to a phenomenology of playing a musical instrument serves as a further source. Focusing on the skilled performer-listener, several types of ineffable knowledge of performing music are identified: gesture feeling ineffability—the performer's sensorimotor knowledge of the gestures necessary to produce instrumental sounds is not exhaustively communicable via language; gesture nuance ineffability—the performer is aware of nuances of instrumental gestures, e.g., micro-variations of intensity or duration of musical gestures, but cannot perceptually, and consequently conceptually, categorize those fine-grained variations; and ineffabilities of inter-subjectivity—the non-verbal interaction between performers that makes a performance a vibrant dialogue is similarly incommunicable. An attempt to identify some of the ineffable dimensions of this dialogue is proposed. Further ineffabilities relating the acoustical embedding of performing are identified.

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Sensorimotor knowledge and the contents of experience

Perception, Action, and Consciousness ◽

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199551118.003.0014 ◽

2010 ◽

pp. 257-273 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Julian Kiverstein

Keyword(s):

Sensorimotor Knowledge

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Cognitive robots in the development and rehabilitation of children with developmental disorders

Bio-Algorithms and Med-Systems ◽

10.1515/bams-2016-0010 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Tomasz Komendziński ◽

Emilia Mikołajewska ◽

Dariusz Mikołajewski ◽

Joanna Dreszer ◽

Bibianna Bałaj

Keyword(s):

Developmental Disorders ◽

Interdisciplinary Approach ◽

Higher Order ◽

Symbol Manipulation ◽

Knowledge And Skills ◽

Future Role ◽

Group Activities ◽

Sensorimotor Knowledge ◽

Cognitive Robots

AbstractCognitive robots constitute a highly interdisciplinary approach to the issue of therapy of children with developmental disorders. Cognitive robots become more popular, especially in action and language integration areas, joining the experience of psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and even engineers. The concept of a robot as a cognitive companion for humans may be very useful. The interaction between humans and cognitive robots may be a mediator of movement patterns, learning behaviors from demonstrations, group activities, and social behaviors, as far as higher-order concepts such as symbol manipulation capabilities, words acquisition, and sensorimotor knowledge organization. Moreover there is an occupation to check many theories, such as transferring the knowledge and skills between humans and robots. Although several robotic solutions for children have been proposed the diffusion of aforementioned ideas is still limited. The review summarizes the current and future role of cognitive robots in the development and rehabilitation of children with developmental disorders.

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Shared Representations in Athletes: Segmenting Action Sequences From Taekwondo Reveals Implicit Agreement

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.733896 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Waltraud Stadler ◽

Veit S. Kraft ◽

Roee Be’er ◽

Joachim Hermsdörfer ◽

Masami Ishihara

Keyword(s):

Grain Size ◽

Expert Knowledge ◽

Control Group ◽

Figure Skating ◽

Action Segmentation ◽

Internal Action ◽

Segmentation Task ◽

Sensorimotor Knowledge ◽

Sensorimotor Skills ◽

Action Representations

How do athletes represent actions from their sport? How are these representations structured and which knowledge is shared among experts in the same discipline? To address these questions, the event segmentation task was used. Experts in Taekwondo and novices indicated how they would subjectively split videos of Taekwondo form sequences into meaningful units. In previous research, this procedure was shown to unveil the structure of internal action representations and to be affected by sensorimotor knowledge. Without specific instructions on the grain size of segmentation, experts tended to integrate over longer episodes which resulted in a lower number of single units. Moreover, in accordance with studies in figure-skating and basketball, we expected higher agreement among experts on where to place segmentation marks, i.e., boundaries. In line with this hypothesis, significantly more overlap of boundaries was found within the expert group as compared to the control group. This was observed even though the interindividual differences in the selected grain size were huge and expertise had no systematic influence here. The absence of obvious goals or objects to structure Taekwondo forms underlines the importance of shared expert knowledge. Further, experts might have benefited from sensorimotor skills which allowed to simulate the observed actions more precisely. Both aspects may explain stronger agreement among experts even in unfamiliar Taekwondo forms. These interpretations are descriptively supported by the participants’ statements about features which guided segmentation and by an overlap of the group’s agreed boundaries with those of an experienced referee. The study shows that action segmentation can be used to provide insights into structure and content of action representations specific to experts. The mechanisms underlying shared knowledge among Taekwondoists and among experts in general are discussed on the background of current theoretic frameworks.

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Behavioral Flexibility and Anticipatory Behavior

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198739692.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Martin V. Butz ◽

Esther F. Kutter

Keyword(s):

Predictive Models ◽

Information Seeking ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Anticipatory Behavior ◽

Sensorimotor Knowledge ◽

Abstract Learning ◽

Goal Directed Behavior ◽

The Brain ◽

Selection Of

While reward-oriented learning can adapt and optimize behavior, this chapter shows how behavior can become anticipatory and selectively goal-oriented. Flexibility and adaptability are necessary when living in changing environmental niches. As a consequence, different locations in the environment need to be distinguished to enable selective and optimally attuned interactions. To accomplish this, sensorimotor learning is necessary. With sufficient sensorimotor knowledge, the progressively abstract learning of environmental predictive models becomes possible. These models enable forward anticipations about action consequences and incoming sensory information. As a consequence, our own influences on the environment can be distinguished from other influences, following the re-afference principle. Moreover, inverse anticipations enable the selection of the behavior that is believed to reach current goals most effectively. Coupled with motivations, goal-directed behavior can be generated self-motivatedly. Furthermore, curious, information seeking, epistemic behavior can be generated. The remainder of the book addresses how the brain accomplishes this goal-oriented, self-motivated generation of behavior and thought, where the latter can be considered mental behavior.

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