Guten Tag allerseits, hello everyone,
in search of an answer I decided to post my question in this forum and hope to gather lots of different thoughts:
I've been wondering about the origin of the cognitive vs. motor tasks distinction - historically, what are the roots of separating so-called 'cognitive' from 'motor' tasks? Who was the first to talk about it? Which disciplines used this separation for their research?
(I have some answers in my mind, that I will add later in the discussion; don't want to direct readers' thoughts already.)
Looking forward to reading your ideas - and: warm thanks for contributing to this question
Cornelia
Cornelia Frank If you're speaking very generally about ideas concerning the distinction between the mind and body - the origin of that discussion goes back thousands of years.
However, I presume you mean more in a contemporary (scientific) context. In the context of cognitive psychology, a famous pioneering study used to separate cognition from behavior was carried out by Donders (1868). Donders had participants perform a simple reaction time task and a choice reaction time task. By subtracting participants reaction times in the simple reaction time task from reaction times in the choice reaction time task, Donders effectively isolated the temporal aspect of decision making.
Motor is the manipulation of physical objects. Cognitive is the manipulation of abstract objects. Imagination of actual objects involves both.
Hi Cornelia,
I have pretty much thought about this question myself already.
My opinion:
1. There are lots of cognitive tasks that do not involve motor elements (e.g. counting, memorizing abstract information).
2. There is no motor task that does not involve cognitive elements. Here the question comes up: Which aspects of a motor task are 'motor' and which ones are 'cognitive'? I think that this varies strongly between research fields and the focus one sets for comparison. For instance, is stimulus-response coupling a cognitive or a motor phenomenon? Is action planning a cognitive or a motor element of a task?
In the end, the term cognitive and motor might only depend on how you define it?
Best,
Stephan
Dear all, many thanks for bringing this forward, and for adding your individual thoughts. To stimulate thoughts, here a paper to address the question what a task is: Article What is a task? An ideomotor perspective
Hi
Motor tasks belong to the real and physical aspects of the task, and cognitive tasks are related to the brain. we have different ways for the promotion of visual perception, the best way is training in real conditions(motor tasks) and there is a supplement way (Imagery, observation,....).
Cognitive tasks are covert in nature whereas motor tasks are overt in nature.
In my opinion, a clear distinction must be made (I see confusion between the terms and what they represent) between cognitive tasks and motor activity tasks.
Cognitive refers to the capacities and mechanisms of learning and access to knowledge, to knowledge not of command of nervous structures over anatomical structures (capable of "motor")
I think that those who answered tried to help and express their opinion, but "motor control", "reflexes" and "neurophysiology" should be discussed!
I hope I was helpful!
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Mathematics