(Non)issues of infinite regress in modeling motor behavior

In the past, infinite regress criticisms that have been raised about models of motor behavior have been reserved for executive-type models (e.g., Beek & Meijer, 1988). On the basis of Godel's (1930/1986) proof that an algorithm cannot prove its own validity, the authors reason that executive--as well as self-organized-type explanatory models of motor behavior have infinite regress difficulties. The conclusion offered in the present article is that judgments on a model's theoretical importance should be based not on issues of infinite regress but on other relevant characteristics, such as its propensity for falsification (Popper, 1959).
Executive and self-organized emplanatory models of motor behavior are subject to infinite regress problems. Therefore researchers should examine their theoretical importance. Judgements of a model's importance should be based on relative characteristics such as motor programs, schemas, traces, actions systems, nodes and demons when modeling motor behavior.
Key words: infinite regress, models, self-organization, theories Beek and Meijer (1988), Edelman (1987), Kelso (1982), and Turvey (1977) have proposed that memory representations used as the basis for motor control [...]