AJP - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, Vol 246, Issue 6 928-R935, Copyright © 1984 by American Physiological Society
Converging evidence in support of common dynamical principles for speech and movement coordination
J. A. Kelso and B. Tuller
We suggest that a principled analysis of language and action should begin
with an understanding of the rate-dependent, dynamical processes that
underlie their implementation. Here we present a summary of our ongoing
speech production research, which reveals some striking similarities with
other work on limb movements. Four design themes emerge for articulatory
systems: 1) they are functionally rather than anatomically specific in the
way they work; 2) they exhibit equifinality and in doing so fall under the
generic category of a dynamical system called point attractor; 3) across
transformations they preserve a relationally invariant topology; and 4)
this, combined with their stable cyclic nature, suggests that they can
function as nonlinear, limit cycle oscillators (periodic attractors). This
brief inventory of regularities, though not mean to be inclusive, hints
strongly that speech and other movements share a common, dynamical mode of
operation.
