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Human Motor Control

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Motor Control is a complex process that involves the brain, muscles, limbs, and often external objects. It underlies motion, balance, stability, coordination, and our interaction with others and technology. This book is a comprehensive introduction to motor control, covering a complex topic in an approachable way encompassing the psychological, physiological, and computational approaches to motor control.

Human Motor Control, 2e cuts across all movement related physical education, dance, physical therapy, robotics, etc. This second edition incorporates advances to the field, and integrates throughout the book how research harkens back to four critical how do we select our actions of the many actions possible? How are these behaviors sequenced for appropriate order and timing between them? How does perception integrate with motor control? And how are perceptual–motor skills acquired?

As before, the book retains its signature organization around activity systems. These activity systems include walking, looking, reaching, drawing and writing, keyboarding, speaking and singing, and smiling. Chapters here exemplify rather than encompass all the behaviors related to them. Hence smiling discusses physical and neural control of the face used in other expressions besides smiling, as well as the origins of emotional expression, and the importance of emotion expression in social interaction. These chapters on activity systems are preceded by chapters on basics, with an introduction and information on the physiological and psychological foundations of movement. The last section discusses integration of movements, individual differences, theories of motor control, and the contributions of both genetics and technology to motor control.

Special features of the second by major activity systems brain imaging, social action, embodied cognition, advances in genetics and technology Detailed treatment of motor neuroscience Further Readings section added to each chapter

Retains unique organization of first Part 1 on Preliminaries, Part 2 on Activity Systems, Part 3 on Principles and Prospects Emphasizes exciting advances in the field and promising new directions Well-illustrated with entertaining figures

909 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 1990

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David A. Rosenbaum

18 books3 followers

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Profile Image for Siobhan.
5,076 reviews602 followers
January 17, 2016
An extremely interesting read for those interested in the topic.

For me, I found it to be the most interesting part of my perception course in psychology. Perception is my most disliked area yet this book helped me so much. It actually made certain aspects interesting. Of course, a large part comes down to how this covers the more interesting areas – but even the less interesting stuff was made tolerable.

Overall, a useful book.
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