Representation and Anticipation in Motor Action

Schack T, Schütz C, Krause AF, Seegelke C. Representation and Anticipation in Motor Action. In: Nadin M, ed. Anticipation Across Disciplines. Cognitive Systems Monographs. Vol 29. Cham: Springer Science + Business Media; 2015: 203-215.This paper introduces a cognitive architecture model of human action, showing how it is organized over several levels and how it is built up to connect the anticipation of future states and related action execution. Basic Action Concepts (BACs) are identified as major building blocks on a representation level. These BACs are considered cognitive tools for mastering the functional demands of movement tasks. Different lines of research, ranging from complex action to manual action, are presented that provide evidence for a systematic relation between the cognitive representation structures and the actual motor performance. It is concluded that such motor representations provide the basis for action anticipation and motor execution by linking higher-level action goals with the lower-level perceptual effects in the form of cognitive reference structures