RESEARCH ARTICLE

Abstract Rhythmic movement coordination exhibits characteristic patterns of stability, specifically that movements at 0 mean relative phase are maximally stable, 180 is stable but less so than 0, and other coordinations are unstable without training. Recent re-search has demonstrated a role for perception in creating this pattern; perceptual variability judgments covary with movement variability results. This suggests that the movement results could be due in part to differential perceptual resolution of the target movement coordi-nations. The current study used a paradigm that enabled simultaneous access to both perception (between-trial) and movement (within-trial) stability measures. A visu-ally specified 0 target mean relative phase enabled participants to produce stable movements when the movements were at a non-0 relationship to the target being tracked. Strong relationships were found between within-trial stability (the traditional movement measure) and between-trial stability (the traditional perceptual judgment measure), suggestive of a role for perception in producing coordination stability phenomena. The sta-bilization was incomplete, however, indicating that vi-sual perception was not the sole determinant of movement stability. Rhythmic movement coordination is intrinsically a perception/action system