Zusammenfassung

A review of the scanty Gestaltist literature on motor behaviour indicates that a genuine Gestalt theoretic approach to motor behaviour can be characterized by three research questions: (1) What are the natural units of motor behaviour? (2) What characterizes the self-organization in motor behaviour? (3) What are the conditions for invariance in motor behaviour? Tentative answers to these questions can be found by analysing the parallels between Gestalt theory and Bernstein's theory of motor actions and by showing that Gestalt theory can be regarded as a specific approach to non-linear dynamics as exemplified by synergetics (Haken, 1991). The congruence between the Gestalt theoretic approach and synergetics becomes apparent in the analysis of how a complex motor task is learned (1).

(Zwischen)Ergebnisse

(1) Stelmach and Diggles' (1982) problem of the degrees of freedom has to be reformulated as the problem of the relation between control (Bernstein's 'governing level' of hierarchical movement regulation) and regulation (the local coping with internal and external fluctuations). Haken's (1991) differentiation between control parameters and fluctuations models this problem exactly and his introduction of 'critical perturbations' illustrates the fact that if the control parameters and the fluctuation are of the same order of magnitude they can interact and cause a breakdown of controlled performance. If stated this way, there is no seperate problem of motor variability. Furthermore, (2) the problem of motor invariance can be resolved by assuming that motor invariance consists in having different regulatory bases governed by the same control parameters and as long as the control parameters remain the same the execution exhibits invariance even if the muscles or even limbs are not the same. These consequences can be regarded as straightforward applications of the Gestalt theoretic principles of transposability and tendency towards 'good form' (the so-called Prägnanz principle).