The Developmental Effect of Concurrent Cognitive and Locomotor Skills: Time-Sharing from a Dynamical Perspective.

A dynamical systems perspective on neuromuscular behavior was used to predict the effect of concurrent verbal cognition on locomotor skills. Fundamental to this perspective is the distinction between coordination (collective) variables which define the movement's pattern and control variables which specify the overall parameters of the movement (e.g., velocity). Only the latter were predicted to show interference in the dual-task situation. Female subjects ranging from 2.5 years to adults were filmed while running and galloping both with and without concurrent vocal and nonvocal tasks. Cinematographic analysis revealed no interference on the coordination variables across age but some interference on the control variables which increased in the younger age groups. The younger children had problems with initiating two neuromuscular tasks simultaneously but once initiated the coordination was unaffected. The results suggest that the coordination of a gait requires less attention than the setting of control parameters and that the former is in place at an early age