THE DEVELOPMENT OF SKILLS IN INFANTS

在请求支持期间，我有三个主要目标。这个 第一是继续开展以发展的一般理论为基础的工作 关于动力系统原理。该理论试图描述，并且 希望能将发育中的生物体建模为多组分 系统，其中系统的元素并行耦合， 如果由此产生的行为遵守一般原则 非线性动力学。职业成长计划包括教程 以及与致力于动态和 运动控制和认知中的连接主义模型。第二 目标是一个致力于理解某一方面的研究项目 在婴儿期的技能发展。这项研究，在合作 加州大学洛杉矶分校的罗纳德·F·泽尼克博士与一位领先的生物机械学家一起寻求 了解婴儿如何驾驭和优化力量 与移动他们的四肢和身体部位相关的一个过程 被认为是获得技能的关键。A系统- 功能主义理论框架被用来产生问题 关于这些所谓的节段间的发育作用 动力学。1.力的力矩是如何在 新生儿的身体节段？2.肢体动力学如何变化 与和影响，任务？3。肢体动力学如何随年龄变化？ 4.姿势对技能习得有什么影响？5.什么 常见婴儿肌肉活动的潜在模式 动作？6.运动的扰动如何影响肢体 动力学？婴儿在纵向和多个横断面上 研究人员将通过计算机记录他们的活动情况 运动分析系统以及肢体的运动学和运动学测量 能源的协调、控制和分配将是 下定决心。这些研究对以下方面具有重要意义 理解技能发展：1.他们第一次描述了 时间，力量是如何在婴儿时期在身体各部分之间分配的 获得技能2.它们展示了动力因素如何与其他因素相互作用 决定技能的神经、结构和环境变量 性能。3.它们提供了理解的原则性基础 关于个人身体和外部世界的信息 可由神经系统传导以产生作用，以及 归根结底，是发展变化。我的最终目标是编写 一本专著中的理论和实证工作。

I have three broad goals for the period of requested support. The first is to continue work on a general theory of development based on dynamic systems principles. The theory seeks to describe, and hopefully, to model, developing organisms as multicomponent systems, where the elements of the system are coupled in parallel, and where the resulting behavior obeys the general principles of nonlinear dynamics. Plans for professional growth include tutorial and collaboration with scientists working on dynamic and connectionist models in motor control and cognition. The second goal is a program of research devoted to understanding an aspect of skill development in infancy. This research, in collaboration with a leading biomechanist, Dr. Ronald F. Zernicke, of UCLA, seeks to understand how infants harness and optimize the forces associated with moving their limbs and body segments, a process believed to be essential in acquiring skill. A systems- functionalist theoretical framework is used to generate questions about the development role of these so-called intersegmental dynamics. 1. How are the moments of force partitioned among the body segments in newborn infants? 2. How do limb dynamics change with and affect, task? 3. How do limb dynamics change with age? 4. What is the effect of posture on skill acquisition? 5. What are the underlying patterns of muscle activities in common infant actions? 6. How do perturbations of movement affect limb dynamics? Infants in a longitudinal and several cross-sectional studies will have their movements recorded by a computerized motion-analysis system, and kinematic and kinetic measures of limb coordination, control, and distribution of energy will be determined. These studies have important implications for understanding skill development: 1. They describe, for the first time, how forces are apportioned among body segments as infants gain skill 2. They show how dynamical factors interact with other neural, structural, and contextual variables to determine skill performance. 3. They provide a principled basis for understanding how information about the individual's body and the external world can be transduced by the nervous system to produce action, and ultimately, developmental change. My final goal is to write the theoretical and empirical work in a monograph.