The Development of Timing Control and Temporal Organization in Coordinated Action, Volume 81

Theoretical Considerations on the Concept of Timing in Motor Coordination. Timing Control in Motor Sequences (P. Viviani, G. Laissard). Invariant Relative Timing in Motor-Program Theory (H. Heuer). Relative Timing from the Perspective of Dynamic Pattern Theory: Stability and Instability (P.G. Zanone, J.A.S. Kelso). Central Generators and the Spatio-Temporal Pattern of Movements (Y.I. Arshavsky, S. Grillner, G.N. Orlovsky, Y.V. Panchin). Current Research on Temporal Patterns of Movements in Early Motor Development. Endogenous Motor Rhythms in Young Infants (P.H. Wolff). Evidence and Role of Rhythmic Organization in Early Vocal Development in Human Infants (R.D. Kent, P.R. Mitchell, M. Sancier). The Role of Reflexes in the Patterning of Limb Movements in the First Six Months of Life (P.M. McDonnell, V.L. Corkum). Development of Infant Manual Skills: Motor Programs, Schemata, or Dynamic Systems? (G.F. Michel). Timing in Motor Development as Emergent Process and Product (E. Thelen). Soft Assembly of an Infant Locomotor Action System (E.C. Goldfield). Timing Invariances in Toddlers' Gait (B. Bril, Y. Brenière). The Development of Intralimb Coordination in the First Six Months of Walking (J.E. Clark, S.J. Phillips). Current Research on Development of Timing During Childhood. How to Study Movement in Children (M.G. Wade, W. Berg). Coordinative Structures and the Development of Relative Timing in a Pointing Task (D.L. Southard). Synchronization and Desynchronization in Bimanual Coordination: A Developmental Perspective (J. Fagard). The Development of Timing Across Four Limbs: Can Simplicity Produce Complexity (M.A. Roberton). Discussion Paper. The Role of Timing in Motor Development (J.C. Fentress). Author Index. Subject Index.

This volume examines the development of timing in coordinated action from several different ontogenetic perspectives. Some chapters emphasize the qualitative changes in manifest motor behavior during the early growth years and examine the relation between temporal characteristics of pre- and perinatal movements and goal directed actions with qualitatively different rules of temporal organization. Other contributors stress the developmentally invariant timing characteristics of species-typical and perhaps genetically programmed motor patterns of nonhuman organisms. Also examined is the molecular machinery that generates circumscribed motor patterns with stable temporal characteristics, as well as the reversible influences of peripheral feedback on and the interactions among discrete pattern generators. Despite their basic theoretical differences, both formulations imply the same generic hypothesis: that the temporal characteristics of manifest movement or action are controlled by central agencies acting on the peripheral skeleto-muscular system in a hierarchic top-down mode.