Perpetual-Motor Synergies - Coursework Example

Perceptual-Motor Control Over the years, human development and growth have shown evidence of dependence on perceptual motor skills. Once infants enter are born, they are inundated with information of a sensory nature. Constant inputs of auditory, kinesthetic and visual cues are helpful to the tiniest baby while perceiving stimuli and responding to the immediate environment. Activities that are appropriate for development are critical in improving the physical and cognitive development of children. This makes the process of acquiring new skills and movements easier. Perceptual-motor development includes the developing ability of a child and potential to interact with the world through a combination of motor skills and senses. Developmental processes use sensory or perceptual skills coupled with motor skills in developing a whole process. The perceptual-motor skills results in the interaction between motor actions and sensory perception in the increasingly skillful and complex behaviors. Visual, tactile, and auditory sensory abilities combined efforts contribute to motor skills and development of perceptual-motor abilities. Perceptual-motor components include spatial awareness, body awareness, temporal awareness, and directional awareness. Body awareness translates to child’s developing capacity in understanding body parts, as well as the body parts' potential. The component makes the human body includes effective and efficient body capabilities. Spatial awareness includes knowledge of the amount of space the human body occupies coupled with ways of using the body to move around the space (Gaines & Missiuna, 2007, p 329). Directional awareness is inclusive of an understanding of direction and location of the human body within the immediate space. The component extends to the establishment of a directionality understanding and objects. Temporal awareness refers to the development of awareness based on relationships between time and movement. Skills in this aspect involve temporal awareness such as rhythm and sequence. The overall events sequence uses various forms of rhythm or patterns that reflect temporal awareness. The perception of a person impacts on the interpretation of every action (Hodge, 1998, p 8). The manner in which young children perceive the world impacts on the type of physical risks the groups are willing to engage in. Children with overly fearful behavior perceive threats in environments that other children do not. Developing motor activities helps children in gaining confidence and benefits of each action. Motor synergy involves neural organization for multi-element systems aimed at organizing task sharing among various elemental variables motor synergy also implores co-variation across various elemental variables to stabilize the overall performance. The synergy components are not physically connected even though their responses are linked to their perceptual information regarding particular motor task under execution (Gaines & Missiuna, 2007, p 326). Synergies are acquired instead of being hardwired like muscle reflexes. The components take the organization of task-dependent proponents such as synergies structured in particular actions and are not determined through components in action. Scientific experiments demonstrate synergies in hammering professional blacksmiths’ actions, their muscles controlling the movement of the arm and the hammer have informational linked. The connection shows that variability and errors are automatically compensated by actions of alternate muscles. The compensatory actions have a reflex-like element for the occurrences for faster perceptual processing for seemingly allowing in presenting expert performance. The synergy of question in a specific organization determines hammering actions as well as general purpose organization for muscles in the arm (Hodge, 1998, p 9). Synergies have defining characteristics for additional task dependence on flexibility/stability and sharing. Most movements carried out within daily activities are transpired through continual processes for accessing sensory information. The components use it as an accurate continuity of the motion. The component of motor control offers feedback control that relies on the sensory feedback and dependence on control movements (Meulenbroek & Van Galen, 2008, p 278). Feedback control refers to situational motor control forms that rely on sensory information regarding performance, as well as specific sensory inputs. The environment has diverse components of movement carried out. The sensory input is processed without necessarily causing conscious awareness for sustainable actions. Further, closed loop control offers a feedback mechanism based on motor control, and the actions of the environment create distinct sorts of alterations that affect future performance based on feedback. Loop motor control best suit continuous control of actions even though it does not have quick responses to ballistic actions (Hodge, 1998, p 10). All ballistic actions include movements that proceed to the end, and actors do not have to think about it, even when such actions are no longer appropriate. The reliance of feedback control on sensory information makes sensory processing slow. The movements can be subject to speed and accuracy trade-off for sensory processing that are used in controlling the movement. Perception has a direct connection to production of movements and actions due to affordances and action possibilities (Meulenbroek & Van Galen, 2008, p 279). Roles of perception include provision of information specifying how such actions are controlled and organized. It also includes the motor system that is tuned towards responding to specific forms of information in various ways. The relationship controls the motor system as well as execution of actions dictated by information in the environment. An example for this includes doorway elements that "afford" passage even as walls do not. The manner in which one passes through the doorway can be specified by visual information sent from the immediate environment coupled with the information regarding the person’s body. This information is a determinant of the doorway pass-ability and not the wall (Gaines & Missiuna, 2007, p 327). The act of approaching the doorway continues to generate information, as well as the comment specifies due work. The direct perception concludes that actions, as well as perceptions, have critical linkage to a full understanding each other. Forward models have predictive internal motor control models that consider available perceptual information together with particular motor programs. The trials continue predicting outcomes for planned motor movements (Meulenbroek & Van Galen, 2008, p 280). Forward models compel actions through the determination of the way velocities, positions, and forces in motor components affect environmental changes and those of an individual. The element proposes that forward models facilitate the neural limb stiffness control as individuals continue interacting with immediate environments. Perpetual-motor models consider motor programs to be inputs as a way of predicting the end outcomes for any actions. The error signals are generated while predictions are made through perpetual-motor models that do not match actual movement outcomes (Hodge, 1998, p 10). The movements prompt update of existing perpetual-motor models while providing mechanisms to learn. These expounded models explain the reasons making it impossible for people to tickle themselves. Sensations such as ticklish are experienced when they are unpredictable. However, perpetual-motor models predict outcomes of personified motor movements and illustrate the meaning of motion through predictable components of an action. The critical issue is the coordination of the motor system and problems of redundancies for motor and freedom degrees. Detailed "synergies" engage movements and actions can be executed for multiple approaches for functional synergies controlling the actions for an enabling co-variant change of action outcomes. The possible motor components are involved in the production of actions for the general requirement of the physical constraints in the requisite actions. For instance, human arms have seven joints that determine positions of the hand across all environments (Gaines & Missiuna, 2007, p 328). Only three spatial components are necessary for specifying locations of the hand and their placements. The excesses of kinematic degrees in terms of freedom are illustrations of multiple arm configurations corresponding to alternate locations of the arm. In conclusion, perpetual-motor synergies offer a simplification of computational difficulties in motor control. The coordination of numerous freedom degrees within the body presents challenging problems due to the tremendous complexities in the motor system and the difference in levels of the organization can occur. The major dimensions include muscular, neural, kinematic, and spatial. The components of perpetual-motor synergy have a functionality of specific tasks where the execution of such motor tasks is accomplished through the activation of relevant synergies using single neural signals. The essence of control for the relevant components has an independent removal due to the organization as well as the automatic emergence of systematic consequence for co-variation in strategic components. The impacts relate to how reflexes have a physical connection and do not necessitate control for individual components across the central nervous system. The actions executed the synergies based on minimal executive control and the functionalities connected. Processes of raising awareness of sensory stimuli as well as the use of such information in influencing action happens in various stages while reaction time of such tasks is used in revealing information regarding such stages. Top of Form References Gaines, R. and C. Missiuna (2007). "Early identification: are speech/language impaired toddlers at increased risk for Developmental Coordination Disorder?" Child Care Health Dev 33(3): 325-32. Hodge, M. M. (1998). "Developmental coordination disorder: a diagnosis with theoretical and clinical implications for developmental apraxia of speech." Language Learning and Education 5: 8-11. Meulenbroek, R.G.J. and G.P. Van Galen (2008)."The acquisition of skilled handwriting: discontinous trends in kinematic variables. Cognition and action in skilled behaviour." North Holland, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.: 273-281 Top of Form Bottom of Form Read More