Sensorimotor Approach Research Articles

Trauma and the transference‐countertransference: working with the bad object and the wounded self

This paper focuses on the transference-countertransference dynamics that manifest in work with those individuals who experienced severe early relational trauma and, in particular, childhood sexual abuse. The literature is surveyed from Davies and Frawley's (1992a) seminal paper through to more current trauma-related and sensorimotor approaches, which deepen our understanding greatly. The rapidly shifting, powerful, conflicting and kaleidoscopic transference-countertransference dynamics are explored in the light of these views and in relation to a lengthy clinical example. The author elucidates the dual-aspect of the traumatic complex, whereby the abuser figure, which is disavowed by the patient, becomes manifest in prosecuting the analyst for the 'wounds' that the analysis evokes. The paper also explores the particular nature of the splitting processes, whereby pressure is put on the analyst to adopt an idealized role, in particular to act as a self-object, in order to enable the patient to safely express and 'be' themselves in an attempt to make up for what was not possible in childhood; the analyst will necessarily fail in this task. In the context of powerful masochisto-sadistic dynamics, the analyst's masochism is likely to be called up in the spirit of caring 'humanity' (another inevitable enactment), which can impede the progress of the analysis if not addressed. The extreme woundedness, intense affect and moral outrage associated with these dynamics are characteristic and compelling. Issues relating to disclosure, enactment and analytic attitude are also discussed.

A dynamical systems account of sensorimotor contingencies.

According to the sensorimotor approach, perception is a form of embodied know-how, constituted by lawful regularities in the sensorimotor flow or in sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs) in an active and situated agent. Despite the attention that this approach has attracted, there have been few attempts to define its core concepts formally. In this paper, we examine the idea of SMCs and argue that its use involves notions that need to be distinguished. We introduce four distinct kinds of SMCs, which we define operationally. These are the notions of sensorimotor environment (open-loop motor-induced sensory variations), sensorimotor habitat (closed-loop sensorimotor trajectories), sensorimotor coordination (reliable sensorimotor patterns playing a functional role), and sensorimotor strategy (normative organization of sensorimotor coordinations). We make use of a minimal dynamical model of visually guided categorization to test the explanatory value of the different kinds of SMCs. Finally, we discuss the impact of our definitions on the conceptual development and empirical as well as model-based testing of the claims of the sensorimotor approach.

A sensorimotor approach to the training of manual actions in children with developmental coordination disorder.

Developmental coordination disorder affects a relatively large proportion (5%-6%) of the childhood population. Severity of the disorder varies but there is a great need for therapeutic intervention. We propose a method for the training of manual actions in children with developmental coordination disorder. Our solution is achieved by applying haptic virtual reality technology to attack the difficulties that children with developmental coordination disorder evidence. Our results show that children with developmental coordination disorder are able to learn complex motor skills if proper training methods are employed. These findings conflict with reports of impaired motor learning in developmental coordination disorder because of underactivation of cerebellar and parietal networks.

Embodying the Mind and Representing the Body

Does the existence of body representations undermine the explanatory role of the body? Or do certain types of representation depend so closely upon the body that their involvement in a cognitive task implicates the body itself? In the introduction of this special issue we explore lines of tension and complement that might hold between the notions of embodiment and body representations, which remain too often neglected or obscure. To do so, we distinguish two conceptions of embodiment that either put weight on the explanatory role of the body itself or body representations. We further analyse how and to what extent body representations can be said to be embodied. Finally, we give an overview of the full volume articulated around foundational issues (How should we define the notion of embodiment? To what extent and in what sense is embodiment compatible with representationalism? To what extent and in what sense are sensorimotor approaches similar to behaviourism?) and their applications in several cognitive domains (perception, concepts, selfhood, social cognition).

Overcoming Motor-Rate Limitations in Online Synchronized Robot Dancing

Abstract We propose an online sensorimotor architecture for controlling a low-cost humanoid robot to perform dance movements synchronized with musical stimuli. The proposed architecture attempts to overcome the robot's motor constraints by adjusting the velocity of its actuators and inter-changing the attended beat metrical-level on-the-fly. Moreover, we propose quantitative metrics for measuring the level of beat-synchrony of the generated robot dancing motion and complement them with a qualitative survey about several aspects of the demonstrated robot dance performances. Tests with different dance movements and musical pieces demonstrated satisfactory beat-synchrony results despite the physical limitations of the robot. The comparison against robot dance sequences generated without inter-changing the attended metrical-level validated our sensorimotor approach for controlling beat-synchronous robot dancing motions using different dance movements and facing distinct musical tempo conditions.

A Sensory-Motor Approach to Feeding

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) play an increasingly significant role in the treatment of children with feeding disorders (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2009). Physicians often refer children for feeding therapy secondary to what is seemingly a behavioral issue. This assumed diagnosis usually reflects a child's refusal to eat; a self-limited diet based upon taste, texture, and visual appearance; or difficulty progressing from breast or bottle to pureed or solid foods. However, a child's case history review may reveal gagging, choking, or vomiting incidents with the introduction of pureed or solid foods, in addition to possible medical and developmental issues. Food refusals can develop secondary to these concerns. Additionally, the child's motor skills may not be adequate to handle the food, and the resulting sensory reaction can be described as “fright, fight, flight” (Overland, 2010). Interactions between the sensory and motor systems cannot be ignored (Fisher, Murray, & Bundy, 1991). The use of a purely behavioral approach to treat these children negates the impact of sensory-motor issues on the oral phase of feeding. Though behavioral issues may develop secondary to sensory-motor problems in the mouth, we need to consider the child's refusal as an adaptive, communicative response to a negative experience, rather than as the primary disability to be addressed. Assessment and treatment of the underlying sensory-motor issues should, in many cases, precede behavioral interventions.

A developmental, body-oriented intervention for children and adolescents with medically unexplained chronic pain

The regulation of pain and other emotions is a developmental process that takes place in the context of attachment relationships. Children with chronic, medically unexplained pain struggle to accurately identify, communicate and regulate negative body states, and to connect these body states to their day-to-day experience. This article describes an individual intervention - one component of a multimodal treatment programme - whose aim is to help children find skills to manage their pain. The intervention incorporates ideas and practices from several theoretical models - the dynamic-maturational model of attachment, cognitive-behavioural theories, narrative therapy, art therapy, sensorimotor approaches -pragmatically selected and adapted to help children presenting to our Chronic Pain Service achieve good clinical outcomes. At the outset we assess the child's capacity to identify, regulate and communicate positive and negative body states, and tailor our individual intervention so as to extend each child's proximal level of development. We initially focus on the body in an effort to equip the child with a non-verbal, image-based language for identifying and communicating pain and other negative body states. Once the child has developed a non-verbal way of knowing her body, a range of cognitive-behavioural, narrative and other strategies are introduced. The intervention aims to increase the child's emotional functioning: her skill in identifying, symbolically representing, communicating and managing pain and other negative body states.

Sensorimotor approaches to trauma treatment

SummaryResearch has consistently demonstrated a connection between affect dysregulation and experiences of early childhood neglect, trauma and attachment failure. Without adequate regulation of the infant's distress states, the nervous system and affect-regulating brain structures fail to develop optimally. Affect dysregulation is a component of all mood, anxiety and borderline personality disorders as well as a contributor to addictive and suicidal behaviour. Methods to increase self-regulation are crucial to the effectiveness of any treatment for these problems. Traditional therapeutic modalities that address distorted cognitions or focus on emotional expression attempt to address affect regulation but fail to modify its underlying basis in the nervous system. Sensorimotor psychotherapy, as a somatically oriented therapy, approaches affect dysregulation as a subcortical issue. Its interventions directly address the underlying causes of dysregulation in the body and nervous system.

Trends in belichaamde cognitie

Embodied cognition has come of age and is now diversifying. In this paper, I discuss four different approaches within embodied cognition: a biogenic approach, an enactive approach, a sensorimotor approach and a scaffolding approach. The four approaches can be differentiated according to their commitments to either biology (biogenic and enactive approaches) and/or experience (enactive and sensorimotor approaches). I will argue that these differences are substantial, but that a reconciliation is possible and even desirable. Seen in this light, embodied cognition can remain a comparatively unified field, these diverging approaches notwithstanding.

Prospective Study of the Effect of Sensory Integration, Neurodevelopmental Treatment, and Perceptual–Motor Therapy on the Sensorimotor Performance in Children With Mild Mental Retardation

This quasi-experimental study compared the effect of sensory integrative (SI) therapy, neurodevelopmental treatment (NDT), and perceptual-motor (PM) approach on children with mild mental retardation. Children (N = 120) were randomly assigned to intervention with SI, NDT, or PM; another 40 children served as control participants. All children were assessed with measures of sensorimotor function. After intervention, the treatment groups significantly outperformed the control group on almost all measures. The SI group demonstrated a greater pretest-posttest change on fine motor, upper-limb coordination, and SI functioning. The PM group showed significant gains in gross motor skills, whereas the NDT group had the smallest change in most measures. SI, NDT, and PM improved sensorimotor function among children with mild mental retardation. The choice of sensorimotor approaches should be determined on the basis of the child's particular needs because each approach may have an advantage in certain aspects of sensorimotor function.

A tailored sensorimotor approach for management of whiplash associated disorders. A single case study

Deficits in cervical joint position (JPE) (Heikkila and Astrom, 1996; Treleaven et al., 2003), eye movement control (Tjell and Rosenhall, 1998; Treleaven et al., 2005a) and postural stability (Sjostrom et al., 2003; Treleaven et al., 2005b) and reports of dizziness and unsteadiness by patients with neck disorders are often noted especially in those who have sustained whiplash injury and report dizziness (Treleaven et al., 2006). Such disturbances are thought to be due primarily to abnormal cervical afferent input to the sensorimotor control system. Secondary changes to the vestibular and visual systems are also thought to contribute to such deficits and complaints (Treleaven, 2008). A tailored sensorimotor control program based on the individual’s deficits has recently been recommended for management (Treleaven, 2008). There is evidence that programs that emphasize gaze stability, eye head co-ordination and cervical position sense improve neck pain and disability and cervical JPE (Revel et al., 1994; Humphreys and Irgens, 2002; Jull et al., 2007). Similarly both a vestibular program and an oculomotor rehabilitation program have demonstrated improvements in balance and dizziness in those with whiplash (Hansson et al., 2006; Storaci et al., 2006). However, there is little evidence to demonstrate the effects of such management on all areas of sensorimotor control. This paper presents the case study of a successful treatment of a patient with

On the relation between the enactive and the sensorimotor approach to perception

In Mossio & Taraborelli (2008) we challenged the assumption according to which the ecological and sensorimotor approaches are mere conceptual variations on the same enactive theme. We showed, on the contrary, that they endorse substantially different notions of an action-dependent perceptual invariant and we submitted that this distinction has interesting theoretical and empirical implications. This dissimilarity between ecological and sensorimotor theories stems, in our view, from a more fundamental divergence on the nature of perceptual information. Since Gibson's work, the ecological approach has adopted a fundamentally realist stance, according to which this information is picked up, revealed, encountered and exploited by the organism (as a range of affordances) but not constituted by the activity of the organism. In contrast, sensorimotor approaches take an explicit interactivist position, which sees the perceiver's motor activity as a determinant of perceptual information itself. Pascal & O'Regan (2008) suggest that our analysis of the relationship between ecological, sensorimotor and enactive theories would benefit from a further distinction. The original enactive approach (Varela et al. 1991; Maturana, 2002; Thompson, 2007), they argue, should not be lumped together with contemporary sensorimotor approaches to perception: whereas sensorimotor theories endorse an externalist view of perception, according to which perception can only be understood as a form of interaction of the organism with the environment, the original enactive approach by Varela and collaborators would have strong idealist underpinnings.

A Sensorimotor Approach to Sound Localization

Sound localization is known to be a complex phenomenon, combining multisensory information processing, experience-dependent plasticity, and movement. Here we present a sensorimotor model that addresses the question of how an organism could learn to localize sound sources without any a priori neural representation of its head-related transfer function or prior experience with auditory spatial information. We demonstrate quantitatively that the experience of the sensory consequences of its voluntary motor actions allows an organism to learn the spatial location of any sound source. Using examples from humans and echolocating bats, our model shows that a naive organism can learn the auditory space based solely on acoustic inputs and their relation to motor states.

Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton and Clare Pain, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy

According to a well-known African proverb, ‘‘it takes a village to raise a child.’’ According to Pat Ogden and her esteemed coauthors, it takes a body to heal a trauma. While both of these assertions hold obvious truths, we easily forget their centrality for establishing healthy development and ensuring recovery from life’s adversities. In Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach To Psychotherapy, Ogden, Minton, and Pain, remind us, in meticulous detail, that the body holds a key for trauma recovery and emotional healing across the board. This book resulted from an exemplary collaboration within the village of traumatology. Accomplished thinkers, researchers, and clinicians in the trauma field shared wisdom and expertise with the authors of this comprehensive guide to sensorimotor psychotherapy. Daniel J. Siegel and Bessell A. van der Kolk co-authored the forwards that emphasize the importance of this book as an integration of ancient wisdom, science, and clinical practice for the purpose of healing one of life’s devastating forms of suffering—trauma. This book succeeds for the same reason that sensorimotor psychotherapy succeeds. It is grounded in the whole body of knowledge available to us about trauma. Without the whole body perspective, our understanding stays limited and the effectiveness of trauma processing remains incomplete. The authors admirably meet the challenge of inviting readers into the daunting world of the body as an essential healing tool. When readers view the Table of

Action-dependent perceptual invariants: From ecological to sensorimotor approaches

Ecological and sensorimotor theories of perception build on the notion of action-dependent invariants as the basic structures underlying perceptual capacities. In this paper we contrast the assumptions these theories make on the nature of perceptual information modulated by action. By focusing on the question, how movement specifies perceptual information, we show that ecological and sensorimotor theories endorse substantially different views about the role of action in perception. In particular we argue that ecological invariants are characterized with reference to transformations produced in the sensory array by movement: such invariants are transformation-specific but do not imply motor-specificity. In contrast, sensorimotor theories assume that perceptual invariants are intrinsically tied to specific movements. We show that this difference leads to different empirical predictions and we submit that the distinction between motor equivalence and motor-specificity needs further clarification in order to provide a more constrained account of action/perception relations.

Trauma and the Body: Examining a Neglected Perspective

Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy is written by Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton, and Clare Pain. Forewords are provided by Daniel Siegel and Bessel Van der Kolk. This book is part of the Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, which seeks to understand how the structure and function of the mind and brain are shaped by experiences, especially emotional and interpersonal experiences. Scientific findings from different interdisciplinary areas converge to bring us new information about Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach

Sensori-Motor and Activity Method of Instruction for Toilet Training the Trainable Mentally Retarded Children

Toilet training is a necessity for all categories of children including the trainable mentally retarded children. The basic operant strategy employed in training toilet skills is behaviour shaping, or the method of successful approximation. The writer of this paper has employed two different techniques to toilet train the trainable mentally retarded children. Eighteen subjects have been used for this experimental research. Of this number, 6 subjects were assigned to each of the sensori-motor approach, the activity method of instruction, and the control groups respectively. Both the experimental and the control groups were pre-tested, using toilet training skill programme. The experimental groups were treated therapeutically for 4 weeks. The control group was excluded. Later the experimental and the control groups were post-tested, using the same test as for the pre- test. The raw scores of the experimental and the control groups were computed and compared using descriptive statistics and analysis of covariance. The results of the means are as follows: Sensori Motor Approach = 65.35 activity method of instruction = 55.59, the control group = 41.42. This study revealed that some techniques can be used to toilet train the normal children and those with deficit behaviours. (Nigerian Journal of Clinical and Counselling Psychology: 2001 7 (1&2): 113-125)

Altered representation of peripersonal space in the elderly human subject: a sensorimotor approach

The representation of the peripersonal space in humans and its modification with aging were studied by analyzing three-dimensional arm movements in healthy young and elderly adults. Participants drew ellipses in three reference planes (sagittal, frontal and horizontal), and errors in the orientation of ellipses with regard to the planes were measured. All subjects showed large disparities in the errors in different planes, errors were maximal in the horizontal plane. These findings imply that different planes are centrally represented with different errors and suggest that the mental representation of peripersonal space is anisotropic. Moreover, the elderly made larger errors than young subjects, regardless of the reference plane. Thus, the space representation is altered with aging. Compared with young adults, the elderly underestimate volume in space, a phenomenon that can be called the compression of space representation.

Treatment of Body Scheme in Children

The purpose of this paper is to review cognitive-perceptual and sensorimotor approaches to the remediation of body scheme deficits in children. The rationale for using these methods will also be examined, and the soundness of the two approaches will be discussed in view of the rationale given for using them. Research on the effectiveness of cognitive-perceptual and sensorimotor techniques will be reviewed, and methodological weaknesses of the studies will be described. A comparison of the effectiveness of cognitive-perceptual and sensorimotor approaches will also be included.

Treatment of Body Scheme in Children

The purpose of this paper is to review cognitive-perceptual and sensorimotor approaches to the remediation of body scheme deficits in children. The rationale for using these methods will also be examined, and the soundness of the two approaches will be discussed in view of the rationale given for using them. Research on the effectiveness of cognitive-perceptual and sensorimotor techniques will be reviewed, and methodological weaknesses of the studies will be described. A comparison of the effectiveness of cognitive-perceptual and sensorimotor approaches will also be included.