Structural factors in patterned finger tapping.

Abstract The relationship between the internal representation and the performance of serial tasks is studied. An experiment is reported in which subjects tapped as fast as possible serial ‘finger patterns’: sequences of taps made with different fingers. The patterns are assumed to be represented internally as hierarchies of operations. The latencies between successive taps are predicted from a production model — the Tree Traversal interpreter — which specifies the necessary actions to produce the finger pattern from a hierarchical memory representation. It was found that varying the internal representation of one and the same sequence of taps affects the performance in a predictable way. The relation of the proposed model to general theories of complex motor behavior is discussed.

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