VIKTOR JIRSA – “Researchers in the field of Coordination Dynamics aim to identify general laws of pattern formation in human movements rather than searching for a locus of movement pattern generation. This approach is inspired by ideas borne by the theory of Dynamic Systems and Self-organization.
Over the last two decades a rhythmic movement paradigm has been the dominant experimental task constraint in this field, because, among other reasons, it allows a rather simple mathematical description of the movement system’s dynamics in terms of its phase.
Another virtue is that it allows only few dynamic phenomena such as a small number of stationary phase states, transitions in between those and phase drift.
Within this paradigm many effects have been successfully investigated including learning, attention, symmetry breaking, perception-action coupling, bimanual interference and many more [Zanone et al., 2000; Zaal & Bootsma, 2000; Temprado et al., 2002] (see [Jirsa & Kelso, 2004] for an overview of the current state-of-the-art).
Despite the obvious successes of the rhythmic coordination paradigm, it remains somewhat unsatisfactory that the scientific knowledge gained under this paradigm has not been transferred to the general field of movement sciences.
At a recent symposium (NASPSPA 2001, St. Louis) on Schema-theory (with Richard Schmidt, Karl Newell, David Sherwood and Tim Lee), the major shortcoming of the Dynamical Systems approach has been referred to as the limitation to rhythmic movements.
The main objective of this proposal is to overcome the limitation of the Dynamical Systems approach to a particular movement type and develop a theoretical foundation of coordination dynamics for arbitrary movements.
The rhythmic movement paradigm shall be included as a subset in a wider class of movement phenomena including discrete movement tasks, the interference of multiple simultaneous movements, as well as the interaction between movements and environmental stimuli.”
One Response to “Theoretical Foundations of Coordination Dynamics”
Notice in this description of Coordination Dynamics, the words “rather than” appear. TCN would say that the search for laws of pattern generation goes hand in hand with efforts to locate and understand central pattern generators. Multifunctional neural circuitry (loci of pattern generation) is now being recognized as a result of multistable neural coordination dynamics (see, e.g. Briggman & Kristan, Multifunctional Pattern-Generating Circuits, Annual Review of Neuroscience, 2008). This development was anticipated in Schöner & Kelso, Dynamic Pattern Generation in Behavioral and Neural Systems, Science, 239, 1513-1520, 1988). Note also the attention given in TCN (pp.212-215) to understanding both rhythmic and discrete behavior through the Jirsa-Kelso model.