The part played by intellectual processes in a sensori-motor performance

An experimental method is described for investigating the relation between intellectual processes and hand movements as both develop during the learning of a skilled task. Subjects were required to make predictive movements to join a series of circles; these appeared one at a time and were arranged in a pattern which was repeated thirty-two times. Comparison between the record of predictive movements and the subject's drawing of the pattern, made at the end of the experiment, showed that errors in the drawing corresponded to the type of response first made when the whole pattern was unfamiliar. For this reason it is suggested that the making of the responses played a part in the development of the idea of the pattern of circles, but the relation between the two is not a simple one.