Table Of ContentADVANCES
IN
PSYCHOLOGY
50
Editors:
G. E. STELMACH
P. A. VROON
NORTH-HOLLAND
AMSTERDAM. NEW YORK . OXFORD .TOKYO
COMPLEX M O V E ~ N BTE HAWOUR
'The' motor-action controversy
Edited by
Onno G.M EIJER
Faculty of Movement Sciences
Free University
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
and
Klaus ROTH
Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science
University of Bielefeld
Bielefeld, F: R.G.
<
1988
NORTH-HOLLAND
AMSTERDAM. NEW YORK .OXFORD .TOKYO
@ELSEVIERS CIENCE PUBLISHERS B.V.. 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted. in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical. photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN: 0 444 70389 6
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LIBRARY a CONOAESS
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Complex movement behaviour : the motor-action controversy / edited by
Onno G. Meljer and Klaus Roth.
--
p. cm. (Advances in psychology ; 50)
Includes bibllographias and indexes.
ISBN 0-444-70389-6
1. MOVRmRnt. Psychology of--PhilOsophy. 2. MO. VRmRnt. Psychology
Of--MethOdOlOgy. I. MeijRr. Onno G.. 1947- 11. Roth. Klaus.
.
1951- 111. Series: Advances in psychology (Amsterdam.
Netherlands) ; 50.
BF295.C 65 1988
152.3--dc19 87-36550
CIP
PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
vi
This Volume was written in New Century Schoolbookm (text) and New
Helvetica Narrowm (illustrations), on a Macintosh SEW, using
Fontasticm, Fontographerm, Illustratorm, MacDraW, MacPaintm,
PageMakerm, Spellerm, Thunderscanm, and WordTM. The files were
printed on a Laserwriter Plusm before photographic reproduction. The
Editors want to acknowledge Mr. N. Steenhuis, Mr. J. Steenhuis, and Mr.
E. Bindels (Compudress B.V., Kamerik, The Netherlands), and Mr. E.
Grijsen (Free University, Amsterdam) for their advice and help in the
technical production of the text.
vii
Foreword
It is very satisfying to be finally engaged in writing the foreword to a book that
marks the fruition of an idea generated by the undersigned (Willimczik and
Whiting), some three years ago. Since this idea did not arise in a vacuum, it is
interesting to sketch the context which gave rise to the workshop which, in its
turn, provided the inducement to the present Volume.
For the workshop, there were two main precipitating factors. In the first place, a
study year on the topic Perception and Action at the Centre for Interdisciplinary
Research (ZIF) at the University of Bielefeld had been planned to take place
between September 1984 and August 1985. Many interesting publications from
that enterprise have since been committed to print. While the Symposia scheduled
for that event proved attractive to members of the Faculty of Psychology and Sports
-
Science at the University of Bielefeld particularly since it was taking place on
their doorstep, so to speak - members of the Sports Science Department (headed by
Klaus Willimczik) had some misgivings, misgivings which were later confirmed
by their attendance at some of the sessions. After all, part of their departmental
brief was to examine the findings of basic research in psychology with respect to
its validity for complex motor behaviour in sports - a topic which was far from
being a direct concern of those contributing to the various symposia on perception
and action.
What did become apparent to members of the Department of Sports Science,
however, from these symposia, was the existence of two markedly different
approaches to the study of skilled behaviour. Approaches which have since come
to be designated the 'motor systems approach' (aligned to an information-
processing perspective) and the 'action systems approach (stimulated on the one
hand by Bernstein's work on the coordination and regulation of movements, and
on the other by Gibson's ecological theory of perception).
At the same time as these events were taking place in the Federal Republic of
Germany, a similar interest in exploring the differences between these two
standpoints and their relevance to an understanding of complex movement
behaviour was already well-established in the Department of Psychology (headed
by John Whiting), and the Department for Theory and History, in the Faculty of
Human Movement Sciences at the Free University in Amsterdam, The
Netherlands.
...
Vlll Compler Movement Behaviour
While the dialogue between the undersigned that led eventually to the
establishment of the workshop was in some ways fortuitous, in others it was the
more direct consequence of the stimulation provided by the study year on
Perception and Action and the questions to which the content of that programme
gave rise. That this should result in a proposal to explore these dichotomous
approaches to the understanding of skill in a more formal way in the context of
sports and everyday life is, given the circumstances, not surprising. Having
generated the idea it was a relatively simple step to operationalize the proposal.
The presence of Klaus Willimczik in the university of Bielefeld and the concept we
were able to present to the Centre of Interdisciplinary Research provided an
attractive proposition to the Director of the Centre and the rest followed as a
matter of course. This is, perhaps, a suitable place to express our gratitude and
that of all those members who attended the workshop, to the Director of the Centre
for his support and sponsorship. We could hardly have chosen a better
environment or venue for the Workshop on Complex Motor Behaviour - Control
and Learning in Sports and Everyday Life, November 5-8,1985.
Somewhat surprisingly, in view of the background sketched above, this Volume is
not a Conference Proceedings in any normal sense of that term, although the
aforementioned workshop certainly provided its context. The general feeling at
the workshop, which had been prepared by sending preliminary versions of the
Chapters by Schmidt and Reed to all participants, was that clarification of
positions was essential to presenting the crucial issues. Most of the Chapters in
the present Volume were, in fact, written after the workshop and were then sent
-
to referees a lively correspondence between authors, referees, and Editors was
the consequence. This, of course, led to considerable modification and updating of
the manuscripts.
We do not feel that we have to apologize in any way for the fact that we are not
editing this book. The keynote of success is, after all, delegation. But, only if one
has the right delegates. We were fortunate in having in our respective faculties as
co-worker6 Klaus Roth and Onno Meijer who were not only willing to take over the
onerous task of organizing the workshop, but were also willing to act as Editors of
any ensuing published material. It is to their good offices that the undoubted
success of the workshop can be attributed. Their success as Editors must await
the appraisal of the reading public - we do not expect them to be disappointed.
Klaus Willimczik and John Whiting,
Bielefeld and Amsterdam,
October, 1987.
xi
Introduction
Someone saw Nasrudin searching for something on the ground.
"What have you lost, Mulla?" he asked. "My key," said the Mulla. So they
both went down on their knees and looked for it.
ARer a time the other man asked: "Where exactly did you drop it?"
"In my own house."
'"hen why are you looking here?"
"There is more light here than inside my own house."
(The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin, by Idries Shah, 1976,
26. London: Pan Books.)
Once in a while, the psychological community is disturbed by the emergence of a
group of researchers who proclaim that Psychology has been looking in the wrong
direction altogether. It is suggested that this, at least in the field of Complex
Movement Behavwur, is again the case. Turvey's 1977 paper on Preliminaries to a
theory of action with reference to vision may have played an important role in this
development, but it was left to Reed in 1982 in his article An outline of a theory of
action systems to suggest that a 'controversy' was presenting itself Reed's
distinguishing between motor system theories and action system theories evoked
rather strong reactions, as, for example, in a 1984 paper by Requin, Semjen and
Bonnet. The present Volume demonstrates that Schmidt, who avoided polemics
until recently (cf., e.g., 1982),a lso acknowledges the existence of polarization.
The term 'motor-action controversy' may be a convenient shorthand, but could
easily lead to confusion. For example, the importance of the 'actor' has been an
important characteristic of information processing approaches which nowadays
would be equated to 'motor' theories. In Frhse and Sabini's 1985 book on Goal-
Directed Behavior: The concept of action in psychology, or in German
Handlungstheorien ('theories of action'), the term 'action' is couched in a
cognitive or phenomenological framework, stressing the intentionality of the
actor. In the present Volume, the 'action aproach, or 'action systems approach',
is the ecological approach to action and perception, inspired by the work of
Bernstein (cf. Whiting, 1984) and Gibson (e.g., 1979).
In Part 1 of this Volume, Setting the Stage: 'The' motor-action controversy,
Richard Schmidt re-emphasizes the existence of some 'common ground between
the two approaches, but also stresses that "the absolute denial of central
representations" (p. 38) by action theorists defines a fundamental point of
departure. Edward Reed then presents his research programme, claiming that
xii Complex Movement Behavwur
"the theory of action systems really does allow us to study the skills of everyday life
in a way that is more fruitfbl than traditional motor skills approaches" (p. 82).
-
Van Wieringen sees the difference as one of kinds of analysis motor
approaches being explanatory, action approaches descriptive - as well as levels of
-
analysis motor approaches being concerned with the level of 'mechanisms'
inside the organism, action approaches with 'molar functional behaviour'. His
paper, 'unmasking' Gibson as a Skinnerian, also serves as an introduction to the
General Discussion which we have tried to present verbatim. As such, the
General Discussion offers interesting material for the study of communication
between scientists: every second page or so there appears to be general agreement
which then explodes into strong opposition and abhorrence. Beek and Meijer,
finally, conclude that no logical demarcation between motor and action
approaches is presently tenable, and present a developmental view: the two sides
have different sources of inspiration.
Part 2, Complex Movement Behavwur: Empirical studies, confronted us with a
major problem. On the one hand, we wanted the material to be presented in terms
of 'the' motor-action controversy and asked authors to elaborate, in this context,
on the theoretical implications of their study. On the other hand, we wanted the
empirical Chapters to speak for themselves, i.e., to offer relevant materal in its
own right. It appeared that the present situation in our field is such that these two
requirements are largely irreconcilable, a 'diagnosis' which is, of course, far
from unique to the field of complex movement behaviour.
Originally, half of the authors were invited to present what we expected to be
typical 'motor' studies, the other half, 'action' studies. Upon scrutinizing the
Chapters presented, however, we discovered that the 'dividing line' evaporated in
the majority of studies. As a matter of fact, we are convinced that this is not due to
our own inability to invite 'typical' researchers, but that it reflects the actual
situation in the field: in many cases empirical studies are concerned with their
own theoretical framework which only 'loosely' relates to the grand issues
presented in Part 1. It was for this reason that we decided to order the Chapters of
Part 2 alphabetically.
Reinoud Bootsma and Piet van Wieringen (Chapter 6) analyse aspects of 'visual
control' in table tennis and stress that such an analysis does not a priori preclude
a motor systems approach.
Timothy Lee (Chapter 7) discusses 'transfer-appropriate processing' and
concludes that current interpretations of both Knowledge of Results (KR) and
'variability of practice' data may be wrong.
Zntroduct ion xiii
In Chapter 8 Karl-Heinz Leist presents a framework for the study of 'action' and
investigates how learning to ride the pedalo is represented in the self-perception of
the actor.
Richard Magill describes, in Chapter 9, how 'forgetting' during the post-KR
interval can benefit learning, and arrives at a Bernsteinian interpretation of
learning how to solve 'motor problems'.
Theo Mulder and Wouter Hulstijn (Chapter 10) stress that rehabilitation should
be directed at 'goal-directed actions' rather than 'isolated movements' and claim
that EMG-feedback could be useful in this respect.
In Chapter 11 Klaus Roth claims to have corroborated the 'motor' hypothesis
concerning 'invariance of relative timing', although, at first sight, the majority of
his test persons disagreed.
John B. Shea and Susan T. Zimny state, in Chapter 12, that their model and
data concerning 'knowledge incorporation' in learning, should be of relevance to
both 'motor' and 'action' approaches.
Stephan Swinnen (Chapter 13) remains unambiguously 'motor' in suggesting,
empirically and theoretically, that the until now underestimated KR delay is the
interval which subjects need to actively evaluate their own response.
William Warren remains, in Chapter 14, dedicated to 'action' and needs 13
pages of studying 'insect flight' before it becomes ecologically understandable how
human can climb stairs.
Finally, John Whiting (Chapter 15) emphasizes that 'imitation' may not be
under control of internal representations, although a topological 'image of the act'
plays a role when an external model regulates, rather than produces, movement.
In Part 3, Motor and Action Approaches: Theoretical considerations, Herbert
Heuer theorizes on a methodology to cope with ecological criticism concerning
'small and simple paradigms'; it appears that strategies for solving the problem
of generalization should be different for 'results', 'laws', and 'statements about
the system'. David Young, his methodological 'counterpart' for the action
approach, presents the view that action approaches operate at the 'computational
level' which does not univocally translate into 'algorithms' and 'implementation';
taking the control of balance during running as an example, he concludes that,
eventually, 'motor' and 'action' approaches will have to be integrated in order to
reach a full understanding of motor skill.
Jan Tamboer argues, from a philosophical point of view, that many so-called
'action' approaches adhere to the same image of 'the substantial body' as do
'motor' approaches. He presents the image of 'the relational body' as the true
starting point for valid action theories. Lothar Pickenhain formulates, from a
xiv Compla Movement Behavwur
neuroscientist's point of view, the necessary prerequisites for valid theories of
complex movement behaviour. These include the incorporation of genetics,
recognition of the unity of perception and action, the central role of 'goals',
complex self-regulating activity in the nervous system, and the importance of the
highest steering and controlling level.
Onno Meijer, Robert Wagenaar and Fons Blankendaal, happily last in this
Volume, were the only authors unable to cope with editorial requirements as to
length of presentation. It is the general impression of the Editors that they are
aiming at a solution to the motor-action controversy by taking together what they
call 'teleodynamics' and 'Turinguesque modelling'. Maybe, then, we have,
indeed, a happy ending!
It is, of course, for the reader to decide if we have succeeded in editing a Volume
on Complex Movement Behavwur: 'The' nwtor-actwn controversy which may
help to clarify important issues in the field. On our part, we found it a rewarding
enterprise.
References
Frbse, M. & Sabini, J. (1985). Goal Directed Behavior: The concept of actwn in
psychology. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.
Gibson, J.J. (1979). The Ecological Appmh to Visual Perception. Boston:
Houghton-Mifflin.
Reed, E.S. (1982). An outline of a theory of action systems. Journal of Motor
Behavior, 14, 98-134.
Requin, J., Semjen, A. & Bonnet, M. (1984). Bernstein's purposeful brain. In
H.T.A. Whiting (Ed.), Human Motor Actions: Bernstein reassessed (pp.
467-504).A msterdam: North-Holland.
Schmidt, R.A. (1982). Motor Control and Learning: A behavioral emphasis.
n:
Champaign, Human Kinetics.
Turvey, M.T. (1977).P reliminaries to a theory of action with reference to vision. In
R. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward
an ecological psychology (pp. 211 -265).H illsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.
Whiting, H.T.A. (1984, Ed.), Human Motor Actions: Bernstein reassessed.
Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Onno Meijer and Klaus Roth,
Amsterdam and Bielefeld,
October, 1987.
