Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 13, 2026

Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior
Published on: April 16, 2014
Perceptual organization of behavior: a hierarchical control model of coordinated action
1Aerospace Corp, Los Angeles, CA.
Abstract:
The behavior of individual subjects is compared with a hierarchical control system model of behavioral organization. Subjects varied the position of two control handles simultaneously to keep the distance constant between two pairs of lines. Three variations on this basic experiment that illustrate some fundamental properties of coordinated action are shown: first, how independent actions, compensating for unpredictable and undetectable disturbances, can produce a single behavioral result; second, how the ability to produce a particular result is maintained when the connection between action and result is changed; and third, how two independent outputs can appear to be related as coordinative structures when one output disturbs a result being controlled by the other. The correlation between the behavior of subjects and model in all experiments is typically on the order of .99. A detailed examination of the operation of the model shows that actions are structured by perception, not by central commands or equations of constraint.
Related Concept Videos
Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System
The receptor level:
The receptor level is the first stage of sensation. It involves the detection of a stimulus by specialized sensory receptors. The stimulus must arrive within the receptor's receptive field. Next, the receptor converts the energy of the stimulus...
Hierarchy of Motor Control
Perception
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...
Gestalt Principles of Perception
The Behavioral Perspective on Personality
Automatic Processing and Automatic Social Behavior

