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The area of motor control is a highly inter- or multi-disciplinary one having drawn its concepts and questions from disciplines from philosophy, neurophysiology and control theory. The course will trace the major disciplinary approaches and their predominant questions and tools, following their chronological development, starting from the early beginnings in philosophy and experimental psychology, information theory, and cybernetics to the more recent advances in control theory and nonlinear dynamics. The course is structured into 6 sections, where each of these areas will be introduced with an outline of its theoretical framework, followed by an overview over the questions it brought into motor control, and concluded with an indepth discussion of representative papers.

The course introduces core issues in motor control with a special focus on a dynamical systems account of behavior. A first focus is on fundamental metatheoretical issues important in the   development of questions on the control and coordination of action and perception. A second focus is on basic concepts of nonlinear dynamics, such as attractors, stability, and bifurcations. Third, one section will introduce techniques in linear and nonlinear time series analysis, such as autoregressive models, dimensionality, and 1/f noise. On the basis of this understanding a critical reading and discussion of selected experimental papers will follow. The topics range from bimanual coordination to postural control.

The course is designed for students preparing for a variety of professions in which teaching, training, or rehabilitation of motor skills is involved. The goal of this course is to provide a theoretical foundation for the study of skill learning and performance so that decisions related to successful instruction, training and rehabilitation techniques can be made. In addition to these more applied issues, a brief historical perspective and an overview over the central issues in a behavioral approach to movement control will be given.