Coordination Dynamics

许多常见的行为需要协调两个肢体节奏。 这些范围从相对简单的两条腿走路的协调到非常复杂的两只手杂耍的协调。 这些协调行为需要身体的许多自由度--也就是说，它的四肢、关节、肌肉，甚至运动神经元--以某种方式被利用来作为完成特定任务的单元。 然而，这种组织表现出相当特殊的灵活性：虽然稳定，但它也必须是暂时的，以便这些相同的自由度可以重新组织，不仅为了完成其他特定的任务（玩杂耍的手也是鼓掌的手），而且还允许系统对扰动做出反应（在不平坦的人行道上绊倒）。 拟议的研究的总体目标是确定的物理原则，管理这些类型的节奏组织或协同作用的形成，稳定性和可变性。 在过去的十年中，我们的研究有助于理解，运动协调是有用的，最适当的解决作为一个问题，在一个特定的方法来物理，自组织系统。 拟议的研究将使用几类实验来探索这样一种想法，即可以使用运动协调作为测试场来检查常见心理现象的物理基础，例如学习，保持，遗忘，注意力和适应。 基本的方法包括要求参与者有节奏地摆动手持的哑铃，保持直立的姿势，或进行级联杂耍。操作（例如，参与者的专业知识或惯用手;钟摆的长度和质量，振荡频率或相位;强加无关的任务;视觉结构的可用性或连续性）是由对物理视角的某些期望所激励的。 三空间运动分析仪和测力平台将用于收集数据。 我们追求的想法，运动的协调原则是自组织物理系统的原则，这些原则的发现和表达将受益于非线性动力学的工具。了解支配运动协调的物理原理应该提供关于节奏和姿势障碍的新假设的来源，以及提供如何协调及其获取的约束条件。

Many common behaviors require coordinating two limbs rhythmically. These range from the relatively simple coordination of two legs in walking to the very complex coordination of two hands in juggling. These acts of coordination require that the body's very many degrees of freedom--that is, its limbs, joints, muscles, even motor neurons--somehow get harnessed to function as units to accomplish a specific task. This organization displays a rather special flexibility, however: Although stable, it must also be temporary so that those same degrees of freedom can be reorganized, not only in order to accomplish some other specific task (the hands that juggle are also the hands that applaud) but also to allow the system to respond to perturbations (tripping on an uneven sidewalk). The overarching goal of the proposed research is to identify the physical principles that govern the formation, stability, and variability of these kinds of rhythmic organizations or synergies. Over the past decade, our research has contributed to the understanding that movement coordination is usefully and most appropriately addressed as a problem in a particular approach to physics, that of self-organizing systems. The proposed research will use several classes of experiments to explore the idea that the physical basis of common psychological phenomena such as learning, retention, forgetting, attention, and adaptation can be examined using movement coordination as a testing ground. Basic methodologies include requiring participants to swing hand-held pendulums rhythmically, to maintain an upright posture, or to perform cascade juggling. Manipulations (e.g., of participant expertise or handedness; of pendulum lengths and masses, oscillation frequency or phase; the imposition of extraneous tasks; the availability or continuity of visual structure) are motivated by certain expectations of the physical perspective. Three-space motion analyzers and force platforms will be used to collect the data. We pursue the idea that the principles governing movement's coordination are the principles of self-organizing physical systems and that the discovery and expression of these principles will benefit from the tools of nonlinear dynamics. Understanding the physical principles that govern movement's coordination should provide a source of new hypotheses about rhythmic and postural disorders as well as providing constraints on how coordination and its acquisition might be modeled.