SENSORY AND TASKED-BASED NEURAL CODING FOR MOTOR CONTROL - OBSERVATIONS WITH HUMAN SPEECH AND HAND MOVEMENTS

As pointed out many times over the last two decades, a central theme of most discussions of motor control, either explicitly or implicitly, has to do with the role of sensory information in shaping and refining the motor output. Indeed, perhaps the most common experiment in motor control has been aimed at the manner and degree of such sensorimotor influence. However, the present paper postulates a broader functional significance for sensory processes in motor control-namely, that the sensory consequences of a given action are the basis for organization of motor output, with kinematic and kinetic variables being determined in a subordinate fashion. This hypothesis has been derived from studies of natural movements that require contractions of multiple muscles and rotations around multiple joints. From those studies, it appears that the universal features of many complex, natural movements are not kinematic or kinetic, but the sensory inputs associated with successful performance of the movement itself.