Various brain areas of mammals can phyletically be traced back to homologous structures in amphibians. The amphibian brain may thus be regarded as a kind of "microcosm" of the highly complex primate brain, as far as certain homologous structures, sensory functions, and assigned ballistic (pre-planned and pre-pro grammed) motor and behavioral processes are concerned. A variety of fundamental operations that underlie perception, cognition, sensorimotor transformation and its modulation appear to proceed in primate's brain in a way understandable in terms of basic principles which can be investigated more easily by experiments in amphibians. We have learned that progress in the quantitative description and evaluation of these principles can be obtained with guidance from theory. Modeling - supported by simulation - is a process of transforming abstract theory derived from data into testable structures. Where empirical data are lacking or are difficult to obtain because of structural constraints, the modeler makes assumptions and approximations that, by themselves, are a source of hypotheses. If a neural model is then tied to empirical data, it can be used to predict results and hence again to become subject to experimental tests whose resulting data in tum will lead to further improvements of the model. By means of our present models of visuomotor coordination and its modulation by state-dependent inputs, we are just beginning to simulate and analyze how external information is represented within different brain structures and how these structures use these operations to control adaptive behavior.

The Routledge International Handbook of Visual-motor skills, Handwriting, and Spelling explores the potentially controversial field of early literacy education. It aims to offer scholars and practitioners an analysis of how and why handwriting skills benefit early literacy learning, especially spelling acquisition, and how this can enrich experiences for children and educators. Offering global perspectives from the field, the volume integrates current theories with up-to-date research and practice, revealing how we can best support children’s early literacy learning with handwriting and visual-motor skills interventions. Key topics covered include: The fundamentals of handwriting skills and literacy acquisition; Global literacy and spelling; Dysgraphia, handwriting difficulties, and dyslexia; Spelling and writing in the digital age; Home learning environment and spelling; Instruction and interventions for spelling and writing. This comprehensive survey will be essential reading for scholars and students of developmental psychology, education, and literacy research.

The care of stroke patients has changed dramatically. As well as improvements in the emergency care of the condition, there have been marked advances in our understanding, management and rehabilitation of residual deficits. This book is about the care of stroke patients, focusing on behavioural and cognitive problems. It provides a comprehensive review of the field covering the diagnostic value of these conditions, in the acute and later phases, their requirements in terms of treatment and management and the likelihood and significance of long-term disability. This book will appeal to all clinicians involved in the care of stroke patients, as well as to neuropsychologists, other rehabilitation therapists and research scientists investigating the underlying neuroscience.

This is the first collection of articles completely and explicitly devoted to the new field of 'comparative developmental evolutionary psychology' - that is, to studies of primate abilities based on frameworks drawn from developmental psychology and evolutionary biology. These frameworks include Piagetian and neo-Piagetian models as well as psycholinguistic ones. The articles in this collection - originating in Japan, Spain, Italy, France, Canada and the United States - represent a variety of backgrounds in human and nonhuman primate research, including psycholinguistics, developmental psychology, cultural and physical anthropology, ethology, and comparative psychology. The book focuses on such areas as the nature of culture, intelligence, language, and imitation; the differences among species in mental abilities and developmental patterns; and the evolution of life histories and of mental abilities and their neurological bases. The species studied include the African grey parrot, cebus and macaque monkeys, gorillas, orangutans, and both common and pygmy chimpanzees.

This collection of original papers provides an overview of the state of the art of research in the area of human motor control, with an approach that has movement biomechanics as a common base. The reader can find interesting information in this book and a stimulus for new studies and investigations.

Originally published in 1987, this title aimed to present an eclectic and biased account of the status of perception-action relationships in various fields at the time. The chapters can be divided into three sections. The first focuses on motor control, a neglected topic in the past and hence deserving the role of the starting point of this volume. In addition motor control provides a good background to discuss the clear sensory and perceptual effects. However, motor processes are also highly relevant to perception, which was usually less emphasized in the literature at the time. Therefore a special section is devoted to motor processes in perception together with the issue of integrating information from different sources. The book concludes with a section on attention and selection of perceptual information for subsequent action.

An evolutionary perspective—from lampreys to humans—on how the forebrain coordinates movement while the networks in the brainstem and spinal cord handle the execution. All living creatures interact with their environment: even the most basic have a set of innate motor circuits they rely on to feed, locomote, fight, and flee. In The Brain in Motion, Sten Grillner describes the evolution of the motor repertoire of vertebrates, from protovertebrates to primates. With breadth and depth, Grillner explores how the brain uses the different microcircuits in the brainstem and spinal cord, coordinating them through commands from the forebrain. He also considers the normal function of the brain as a platform for understanding clinical conditions such as stroke, Parkinson´s and Huntington´s diseases, and spinal cord injury. Grillner also explains in The Brain in Motion how the remarkable finding that the lamprey forebrain has all the components of the mammalian one has radically changed scientists’ views on the evolutionary origin of the vertebrate forebrain. We now know that the basic organization evolved 560 rather than 300 million years ago, as was previously thought. The forebrain, says Grillner, is like an orchestra conductor, while the microcircuits, with their reaching, grasping, posture, locomotion, and numerous other patterns of behavior, correspond to the members of the orchestra. The conductor determines when each will be called into action. Providing an elegantly integrated perspective, The Brain in Motion is essential reading for anybody that works professionally with movement control and function and dysfunction, whether in basic research, clinically, or in the training of motor skills.

The Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction captures a new paradigm in the study of music interaction, as a wave of recent research focuses on the role of the human body in musical experiences. This volume brings together a broad collection of work that explores all aspects of this new approach to understanding how we interact with music, addressing the issues that have roused the curiosities of scientists for ages: to understand the complex and multi-faceted way in which music manifests itself not just as sound but also as a variety of cultural styles, not just as experience but also as awareness of that experience. With contributions from an interdisciplinary and international array of scholars, including both empirical and theoretical perspectives, the Companion explores an equally impressive array of topics, including: Dynamical music interaction theories and concepts Expressive gestural interaction Social music interaction Sociological and anthropological approaches Empowering health and well-being Modeling music interaction Music-based interaction technologies and applications This book is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand human interaction with music from an embodied perspective.

This volume integrates theory and experiment to place the study of vision within the context of the action systems which use visual information. This theme is developed by stressing: (a) The importance of situating anyone part of the brain in the context of its interactions with other parts of the brain in subserving animal behavior. The title of this volume emphasizes that visual function is to be be viewed in the context of the integrated functions of the organism. (b) Both the intrinsic interest of frog and toad as animals in which to study the neural mechanisms of visuomotor coordination, and the importance of comparative studies with other organisms so that we may learn from an analysis of both similarities and differences. The present volume thus supplements our studies of frog and toad with papers on salamander, bird and reptile, turtle, rat, gerbil, rabbit, and monkey. (c) Perhaps most distinctively, the interaction between theory and experiment.

Depth Perception in Frogs and Toads provides a comprehensive exploration of the phenomenon of depth perception in frogs and toads, as seen from a neuro-computational point of view. Perhaps the most important feature of the book is the development and presentation of two neurally realizable depth perception algorithms that utilize both monocular and binocular depth cues in a cooperative fashion. One of these algorithms is specialized for computation of depth maps for navigation, and the other for the selection and localization of a single prey for prey catching. The book is also unique in that it thoroughly reviews the known neuroanatomical, neurophysiological and behavioral data, and then synthesizes, organizes and interprets that information to explain a complex sensory-motor task. The book will be of special interest to that segment of the neural computing community interested in understanding natural neurocomputational structures, particularly to those working in perception and sensory-motor coordination. It will also be of interest to neuroscientists interested in exploring the complex interactions between the neural substrates that underly perception and behavior.