Contribution of biological studies to the understanding and modeling of skilled performance: Some examples

Abstract

A "skilled performance" by a human involves the automatization of a skill, which in turn is closely related to sensory-motor processing. Behavioral patterns of invertebrate animals are often described in relation to their simple sensory systems. Following biological observations, skill-based models for animal behaviors have been constructed to explore the fundamental systems of adaptive skill acquisition. This paper describes the underlying properties of "skilled performance" and how biological studies on animals that are less complex than humans can contribute to the understanding of task-based performance. The creating of a model for the skill is discussed by giving some examples. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.