Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
928842 Human Movement Science 2009 22 Pages PDF
Abstract

Human motor behavior is often characterized by long-range, slowly decaying serial correlations or 1/fβ noise. Despite its prevalence, the role of the 1/fβ phenomenon in human movement research has been rather modest and unclear. The goal of this paper is to outline a research agenda in which the study of 1/fβ noise can contribute to scientific progress. In the first section of this article we discuss two popular perspectives on 1/fβ noise: the nomothetic perspective that seeks general explanations, and the mechanistic perspective that seeks domain-specific models. We believe that if 1/fβ noise is to have an impact on the field of movement science, researchers should develop and test domain-specific mechanistic models of human motor behavior. In the second section we illustrate our claim by showing how a mechanistic model of 1/fβ noise can be successfully integrated with currently established models for rhythmic self-paced, synchronized, and bimanual tapping. This model synthesis results in a unified account of the observed long-range serial correlations across a range of different tasks.

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