Cognitive models of the control of motor sequences

Many modern cognitive models of the control of motor sequences have traditionally integrated both reaction time and movement time as distinct factors. This synthesis aims to integrate the evidence related to these key aspects. We first explore how the number of elements in a response influences reaction time. Following that, we extend our discussion to cover the planning and regulation of aiming movements that involve multiple targets. In navigating this terrain, we emphasize the separation between preparatory processes before movement initiation and control processes during movement execution. While distinguishing between movement preparation and control, we also put forth considerations acknowledging the interconnected nature of these processes. We will further describe novel cognitive models focusing on the role that attention plays in the perceptual selection of movement components. This involves identifying various paradigms and experimental tasks applicable for examining attention deployment in three-dimensional space. The discussion demonstrates the close association of attention not only with fundamental movement components, such as individual saccades or manual reaches, but also in intricate everyday tasks that result from complex sequences of movement primitives.