Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1992 Sep;24(3):281-287.
doi: 10.1080/00222895.1992.9941623.

Evidence of Common Timing Processes in the Control of Manual, Orofacial, and Speech Movements

Affiliations

Evidence of Common Timing Processes in the Control of Manual, Orofacial, and Speech Movements

E. A. Franz et al. J Mot Behav. 1992 Sep.

Abstract

Recent investigations of timing in motor control have been interpreted as support for the concept of brain modularity. According to this concept, the brain is organized into functional modules that contain mechanisms responsible for general processes. Keele and colleagues (Keele & Hawkins, 1982; Keele & Ivry, 1987; Keele, Ivry, & Pokorny, 1987; Keele, Pokorny, Corcos, & Ivry, 1985) demonstrated that the within-subject variability in. cycle duration of repetitive movements is correlated across finger, forearm, and foot movements, providing evidence in support of a general timing module. The present study examines the notion of timing modularity of speech and nonspeech movements of the oral motor system as well as the manual motor system. Subjects produced repetitive movements with the finger, forearm, and jaw. In addition, a fourth task involved the repetition of a syllable. All tasks were to be produced with a 400-ms cycle duration; target duration was established with a pacing tone, which then was removed. For each task, the within-subject variability of the cycle duration was computed for the unpaced movements over 20 trials. Significant correlations were found between each pair of effectors and tasks. The present results provide evidence that common timing processes are involved not only in movements of the limbs, but also in speech and nonspeech movements of oral structures.

PubMed Disclaimer

LinkOut - more resources