Motor Equivalence

This bibliography was created to help guide people in understanding the problem of motor equivalence. The term motor equivalence(or intrinsic variability[Grobstein]) is a phenomena where a single organism will react differently to the exact same stimulus. We are looking at predator instincts in frogs in our lab and this is seen when frogs will jump forward, to the left, or to the right of a stimulus located in the same position every time(go here for more information on frog research). Below are listings of articles that are being looked into for their use in explaining motor equivalence. Please write me if you have any input on these articles or have others that you think should be included.

Useful Articles

1. Flash, T.; Hogan, K.N.(1985) The coordinate of arm movements: An experimentally confirmed mathematical model. Journal of Neuroscience, Vol.5, pp.1688-1703(2)
   
   • An interesting paper that acknowledges motor equivalence in planar, multi-joint arm movements, but puts forth that the nervous system seeks to use the most efficient motion when trying to reach a given point. With this in mind, they were able to create a mathematical model that was able to predict arm motion, but could still not account for motor equivalence. The paper makes no attempt to explain the mechanisms behind motor equivalence, but is able to create an accurate model that works around the problems that the unexplained phenomenon presents.

2. Hull, C.L.(1934) The concept of the habitat-family hierarchy and maze learning. Psychological Review, Vol.41, (I)pp.33-54, (II)pp.134-152
   
   • This paper does not address motor equivalence directley, but does bring up the two interesting concepts of divergent and convergent mechanisms in behavior. Divergent is decriptive of when many actions come from the same stimuli and convergent addresses when many stimuli produce the same action. Hull then goes onto describe his habit-family hierarchy where one sequence of events are preffered over another and thus a hierarchy is established within an organism. While divergent behavior is essentially motor equivalence, Hull only uses the terms to advance his hierarchy theory and never really gets at the roots of why divergent and convergent behavior exist.

3. Lashley, K.S.(1930) Basic neural mechanisms in behavior. Psychological Review Vol.37, pp.1-24
   • This paper is a general overview of the problem of motor equivalence. It was written in a time when the nervous system was believe to be very static and left no room for the variability inherent in motor equivalence. Lashley was ahead of his time by writing one of the earliest pieces concerning the subject. By looking at both equivalent stimuli(different stimuli giving the same reaction) and motor equivalence, he was able to fully appreciate the complexity of the nervous system.

4. Stelmach, G.E.; Diggles, V.A.(1982) Control Theories in Motor Behavior. Acta Psychologica, Vol.50, No.1, pp.83-105(1)
   • This paper deals with one of the most fundamental question concerning motor behavior, how movement is specified. Through the course of the paper Stelmach and Diggles present different models and develop their theories behind motor behavior. They initially point out that because motor equivalence exists, there can not be any direct and concrete correlation between motor output and the neural activity that creates them. They then look at a model for behavior that makes the central nervous system a storehouse of commands and assigns little significance to the peripheral nervous system other than carrying the messages. But this would require a large storage area and doesn't allow for peripheral input and variability in output. This led them to accept a hierarchical model for behavior where the upper levels of the nervous system provide the fundamental ideas for the output, but lesser levels fill in the details along the messages path. This model is a lot more complicated and is dependent on pathways between levels in the nervous system, but it can account for variability. The remainder of the paper consists of a discussion of parameters of movement and the functional units of movement. The idea of horizontal control is also brought up, where different groups of neurons are used to accomplish a common task, which is the opposite of the hierarchical levels of the model. This also helps to account for motor equivalence, because your bound to have variability when several systems can accomplish the same task. In the end, Stelmach and Diggles push the issue of giving more responsibility to the lower levels of the nervous system and end up creating a flexible system that does a good job of accounting for motor equivalence.

Articles In The Process Of Being Reviewed

• Abbs, J.H.; Cole, K.J.(1987) Neural Mechanisms of Motor Equivalence and Goal Achievment In S.P. Wise(Ed.), Higher Brain Functions: Recent explorations of the BrainŐs Emergent Properties. Chapter 2.(pp.15-43)John Wiley&Sons(1)

• Lacquanti, F.; Soechting, J.F.(1982) Coordination of arm and wrist motion during a reaching task. Journal of Neuroscience, 2, pp.399-408(2)

• Lashley, K.S.(1951). The Problem of Serial order in Behavior. In L.A. Jeffress(Ed.), Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior(the Hixon Symposium). New York : John Wiley & Sons(2)

• Miller, G.A.; Galenter, E.; Pribram, K.H.(1960) Plans and the Structure of Behavior. New York: Holt(3)

• Morasso, P.(1981) Spatial control of movements. Experimental Brain Research, Vol.42, pp.223-527(2)

• Tanji, J.; Evarts, E.V(1976) Anticipatory activity of motor cortex neurons on relation to direction of an intended movement. Journal of Neurophysiology, 39, pp.1062-1068(3)

• Tolman, E.C.(1932) Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men. New York: Century

• Wiesendanger M.; Kaluzny P.; Kazennikov O.; Palmeri A.; Perrig S.(1994, May) Temporal coordination in bimanual actions. Canadian Journal of Physiology Pharmacology(Canada), Vol.72, No.5, pp.591-4(1)

Articles That May Be Useful, But Are Difficult To Attain

• Abbs, J.H.(1979) Speech motor equivalence: the need for a multi-level control model.
  In Proceedings of the ninth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Vol.2. Copenhagen : Institute of Phonetics(3)

• Bayne, B.; Hawkins, T.(June 1996) Feeding behaviors at high and variable seston loads.
  Journal of Shellfish Research, Vol. 15, No.2, p.505(1)
  • Discussion of intrinsic variability in the feeding behavior of suspension feeding bivalves.

• Bernstein, N.A(1967) The Co-ordination and Regulation of Movements. Oxford: Pergamon Press(2)

• Gelfand, I.M.; Gurfinkel, V.S.; Tsetlin, M.L.; Shik, M.L.(1971) In models of the Structural-Functional Organization of Certain Biological Systems. I.M. Gelfand; V.S. Gurfinkel; S.V. Formin; M.L. Tsetlin(Eds.), pp.329-345, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

• Greene, P.H.(1972) Problems of organization of motor systems. Prog. Theor. Biol. Vol.2, pp.304-338

• Greve, D.; Grossberg S.; Guenther F.; Bullock D.(1993, March) Neural representations for sensory-motor control, I:Head-centered 3-D target positions from opponent eye commands.
  Acta Psychol(Amst)(Netherlands), Vol.82, No.1-3, pp.115-38(1)

• Higgins, J.R.; Spaeth, R.K.(1972) Relationships between consistency of movement and environmental condition.
  Quest, Vol.17, pp.61-69(3)

• Hughes, O.M.; Abbs, J.H.(1976) Labial-mandibular coordination in the production of speech: Implications for the operation of motor equivalence. Phonetica Vol.33, pp.199-221(2)

• Keele, S.W. (1981) Behavioral analysis of movement. In V.B. Brooks(Ed.), Handbook of Physiology. Section 1, The Nervous System, Volume II, Motor Control, Part 2(pp.1391-1414) Baltimore, MD: American Physiological Society(2)

• Kelso, J.A.S.; Tuller, B.; Fowler, C.A.(1982) The functional specificity of articulatory control and coordination. J. Acoust.Soc.Am., Vol.72, p.5103(2)

• Lashley, K.S.(1938) Factors limiting recovery after central nervous lesions.
  Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol.88, pp.733-755(3)

• Levels, P.J.; Denuce, J.M.(1988) Intrinsic variability in the frequency of embryonic diapause of the annual fish Nothobranchius Korthausae, regulated by light:dark cycle and temperature.
  Environmental Biology of Fishes. The Hague, Vol.22, No.3, pp.211-224(1)

• Murphy P.J.; Campbell S.S.(1996, Jan.) Physiology of the Circadian system in animals and humans.
  Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology(United States), Vol.13, No.1, pp.2-16(1)

• Perkell J.S.; Matthies M.L.; Svirsky M.A.; Jordan M.I.(1993, May) Trading relations between tongue-body raising and lip rounding in production of the vowel /u/: a pilot motor equivalence study.
  J. Acoust. Soc. Am.(United States), Vol.93, No.5, pp.2948-61(1)

• Reed, E.S.(1982) An outline of a theory of action systems. Journal of Motor Behavior, Vol.14, pp.98-134(2)

• Regniere, J.(1984) A method of describing and using variability in development rates for the simulation of insect phenology. Canadian Entomologists, Vol.116, No.10, pp.1367-1376(1)
  • The article uses an analytical method for describing intrinsic variability.

• Terzuolo, C. and P.Viviani(1979) The central representation of learned motor patterns. In Posture and Movement, R.E. Talbott and D.R. Humphreys, eds. pp.113-121, Raven Press, New York

• Welch, D.W.;McFarlane, G.A.(1990) Quantifiying the growth of female Pacific hake(Merluccius productus): An example of measuring uncertainty and bais in non-linear estimation.
  Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Vol.47, No.4, pp.672-681(1)
  • The model within the article is described as being useful to systems other than growth

• Wiesendanger M.(1995, Dec 5) The doctrine of brain localization and its development in the 20th century.
  Schweiz Rundsch Med Prax(Switzerland), Vol.84, No.49, pp.1448-58, 1995 Dec 5th(1)

Resources

1. Cambridge Scientific Abstracts(www.csa.com)

2. Abbs J.H.; Cole K.J.(1987) Neural Mechanisms of Motor Equivalence and Goal Achievment

3. Stelmach, G.E.; Diggles, V.A.(1982) Control Theories in Motor Behavior

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