Referent control of action and perception: Challenging conventional theories in behavioral neuroscience - Softcover

Feldman, Anatol G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1493944460 ISBN 13: 9781493944460

Publisher: Springer, 2016

Synopsis

Empirical data on neural control of motor action and perception have not yet been put into the context of a coherent theory. Dr. Feldman's goal for the proposed book is to illustrate that the field is now at a stage where the data can be used to formulate some core principles that underlie action and perception and to present the foundation of a scientific theory of motor control. Dr. Feldman is a well-known expert and has been active in the field for a long time. In the proposed book he will outline an approach to the analysis of action and perception that he and his colleagues have been using for the past 50 years or so. His theoretical approach will not only help to explain past empirical research, but should also help to inform and provide a structure for future empirical studies.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Anatol Feldman is one of the world’s foremost neuroscientists in the area of motor control. His work has had a strong and sustained influence in behavioral neuroscience since the 1960’s when he published a unique theory of motor control, called the equilibrium-point hypothesis He has been a professor in the Department of Physiology (now Neuroscience) at the University of Montreal since 1990. After having been denied the right to travel out of the USSR for 25 years, he was granted permission to attend a neuroscience meeting as a distinguished Keynote Speaker in Ontario in 1988. He returned to Canada as a visiting professor at McGill University in 1989. In 1997, he joined the Centre de recherche en sciences neurologiques (CRSN) in the Department of Neuroscience at the Université de Montréal. His laboratories are affiliated with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal (CRIR). He is the first recipient of the Nicolai Bernstein award from the International Society of Motor Control.

From the Back Cover

This book provides a long-awaited description of a classic motor control theory of action and perception – referent control. Strictly based on experimental material, this theory places action and perception in the context of physical laws to offer solutions of several classical problems in behavioral neuroscience and neurological pathologies.

The author re-visits and refines many basic concepts in behavioral neuroscience, including central pattern generators, reflexes, and motor learning. Further, he provides many examples of how task-specific referent control of action and perception can be accomplished by the nervous system. This information may help researchers design theory-driven experiments that address the question of how actions are controlled and how changes in biomechanical characteristics emerge without pre-programming.

This book may be interesting to researchers, students in behavioral neurosciences as well as to a broader audience who want to know how action and perception are accomplished by the nervous system.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1493944460
• ISBN 13: 9781493944460
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 258