Invited Talk 1

Wednesday, July 20, 9:00-9:50 (International Conference Hall)

An Action Approach to Motor Development

Claes von Hofsten

Uppsara University, Sweden

Abstract
Converging evidence from many different fields of research suggest that human movements are organized as actions and not reactions, that is, they are organized around tasks and goals, driven by a motivation, and guided by information. It is the goal that is important not the means by which it is achieved. This has profound implications for motor development. From an action perspective, motor development is not just about getting control over muscles. Equally important are questions asking why the child moves, how the movements are planned, and how they come to anticipate what is going to happen next. In the present lecture I will focus on the prospective nature of actions and how infants acquire such control. Any system with the purpose of producing adaptive behavior has to deal with the fact that events precede the feedback signals about them. In biological systems, the delays in the control pathways may be substantial. Relying entirely on feedback is therefore non-adaptive. The only way to overcome this problem is to use prospective control, that is, to anticipate what is going to happen next and use that information to control ones behavior. Prospective control is possible because events in the world are governed by rules and regularities (e.g. natural laws, task specific rules, socially determined rules). Knowledge about those rules and regularities enables us to formulate internal predictive models and use them for guiding action. The predictive models need to be continuously updated to fit in with the ongoing stream of events. Perception provides us with such information. This is an important aspect of motor development.

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