How are actions physically implemented?

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the interdisciplinary discussion between cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists on how actions, the results of decision processes, are implemented. After surveying the approaches used in action implementation research, we analyze the contributions of these different approaches in more detail. Topics covered include expertise research in sports science, knowledge structures, neuroscientific research on motor imagery and decision making, computational models in motor control, robotics, and brain-machine interfaces. This forms the basis for discussing central issues for interdisciplinary research on action implementation from different viewpoints. In essence, most findings show the need to abandon serial frameworks of information processing suggesting a step-by-step pattern from perception, evaluation, and selection to execution. Instead, an outlook on new approaches is given, opening a route for future research in this field.