Perceptual-Motor Development: Eye, Hand and Space in the Pyramid of Learning

Perceptual-motor development: the gaze learns to get ahead of the hand

Perceptual-motor development is the fourth level of Williams and Shellenberger's pyramid of learning. It brings together six skills: eye-hand coordination, oculomotor control, postural adjustment, language and auditory skills, visuospatial perception, and attentional functions. Together, they couple what we perceive with what we do in space.

Hello to you, the movement professional,

Toss a tennis ball to a 4-year-old child, from three meters away, straight in front. Very often, the arms reach out in front and wait. When the ball arrives, the head pulls back, the eyelids close, and the ball ends up pinned against the chest or on the floor. Repeat the same toss with an 8-year-old. The eyes pick up the ball as soon as it leaves your hand, the hands open during the flight, a small step readjusts the feet and the arms give at contact to cushion it.

Between the two, the gaze, the hand and the body have learned to organize themselves around a moving object. Filmed catching a small ball, children aged 5 to 12 follow age-related sequences, for the hands as well as for the body (Strohmeyer et al., 1991). Where the ball lands, belly or forehead, does not trouble every age in the same way. Change the ball, and the movement often changes with it, as in our letter on the child who changes movement with the ball.

Eye-hand coordination: the gaze lays down landmarks

Grab a cup and set it down farther away: your eyes land on the handle, then on the spot where you will put it down, before your hand. Roland Johansson and his colleagues (2001) measured this with a bar to grasp in order to press a button. Nobody looked at their hand or at the moving bar: the eyes jumped from the grip to the target, then to the surface where the bar would rest, always ahead of the hand.

These measurements come from adults. Transposed to our two children, they give a field hypothesis: the younger one places his landmarks too late, the older one places them where the ball will pass. Before correcting a hand, look first at where the eyes were just before contact.

Oculomotor control and the vestibulo-ocular reflex

Oculomotor control brings together two families of eye movements. The first keeps the image stable on the fovea, the area of fine vision of the retina: fixation, the vestibulo-ocular reflex when the head moves, the optokinetic reflex when the scenery scrolls by. The second moves the gaze. Saccades jump from one point to another, like your eyes along this line. Pursuit accompanies a moving target, and vergence, which the article on vergence and stability explores further, adjusts the two eyes between near and far.

When the head turns, the semicircular canals of the inner ear detect the rotation. In less than about ten milliseconds, the eyes turn at the same speed in the opposite direction, and the image stays steady on the retina. When the head moves in a straight line, the otoliths take over, with a partial compensation that depends on the distance being looked at. The article on the vestibulo-ocular reflex details the circuit.

The rest of the body takes part too. Thierry Pozzo, Alain Berthoz and Loïc Lefort (1990) filmed ten adults walking, running in place or hopping. The head moved vertically by up to 25 cm, but its tilt stayed stabilized around the horizontal, within 20 degrees. The authors see in this a piece of postural control and a basis for inertial guidance. A sharp gaze in full stride therefore also depends on the neck and trunk stabilizing the head.

Anticipatory and compensatory postural adjustment

Standing, quickly raise both arms in front of you. Before your arms leave, muscles of the trunk and legs have already contracted to counter in advance the imbalance the movement will create. Jean Massion (1992) gathered the work showing that every voluntary movement thus carries its own postural preparation; the entry on Massion and postural control summarizes the basics.

Compensatory adjustment comes after the fact, when a push has already thrown you off balance. Marcio Santos, Neeta Kanekar and Alexander Aruin (2010) pushed eight adults at shoulder height, either by surprise or after warning them. By surprise, no anticipatory activity appeared and everything was caught up in compensation. Warned, their muscles activated beforehand, and the compensation became markedly smaller.

In children, this anticipation is built with ups and downs. Hay and Redon (1999) had children aged 3 to 10 and adults hold a load while standing with eyes closed, then had the person release it or had it removed by surprise. Anticipation gained in efficiency with age, but its share in the control of balance evolved in fits and starts. For measurement, read the article on postural control and balance; for anticipation, the one on the brain that moves before you.

Language, listening and attention: what posture leaves available

Language and listening are surprising at this level. The first connection is anatomical: the cochlea, which hears, sits next to the vestibule, and their fibers share the vestibulocochlear nerve before reaching distinct nuclei of the brainstem. This proximity proves no functional link, and the pyramid says no more than that. Our reading stays cautious: keeping an instruction in mind while moving mobilizes resources that posture shares.

Dual-task research points in this direction. Marjorie Woollacott and Anne Shumway-Cook (2002) gathered the work showing that maintaining posture consumes attention, all the more when the task is difficult or balance is fragile. Sujitra Boonyong and her colleagues (2012) added a mental task to the walking of children aged 5 to 16 and young adults. In the children, walking demanded attention, especially at 5 to 6 years.

Hence the place of attentional functions at this level. A child whose posture absorbs part of his attentional resources keeps less for the instruction. From the outside, it looks like distraction.

Visuospatial perception: locating objects, and the 3 that flips around

Visuospatial perception locates objects relative to each other and to oneself: the distance of the ball, the gap between two defenders, the side toward which a letter opens. The posterior parietal cortex plays a central role here.

Letter and number reversals are its best-known face. Jean-Paul Fischer and Youssef Tazouti (2012) studied mirror writing of digits and capital letters in kindergarten. It appeared far more often from memory than in copying; according to the authors, almost all children would go through it. A reversed 3 or J in kindergarten is therefore part of the ordinary path. These reversals fade as reading and writing become established; no primary source gave us a precise age.

Why this level depends on a body that holds and a stable gaze

The six skills presuppose a stable image on the retina, a body that prepares itself before acting, and attention free for the task. The levels below supply them: the vestibular system and proprioception at the second, postural security and body schema at the third.

The two right-hand columns come from our field reading, with no value as an assessment tool.

Reading the game and perception-action coupling: what the coach observes

On the field, reading the game runs through this level. In cricket, the batsman's eyes fix on the release, jump to the expected bounce point, wait for the ball there, then follow it 100 to 200 milliseconds after the bounce. Michael Land and Peter McLeod (2000) recorded this in three batsmen facing a machine bowling at about 25 meters per second. The best one launched this first saccade earlier than the others.

Across 42 studies, the meta-analysis by Derek Mann and his colleagues (2007) confirms that experts pick up cues better. They make fewer fixations, longer ones, with a prolonged final fixation before the movement, the calm eye (quiet eye).

We perceive in order to act, and action changes what we perceive: this is perception-action coupling, which the episode on peripheral vision in football applies to the field.

Speed and moving targets load the level, and so does fatigue. When it holds, the head stays calm and the gaze leaves for the target before the hand or foot. When it drops out, the head follows the ball with the whole torso, the hand arrives late and catch-up steps multiply. Our field hypothesis: a level that is only just adequate holds at the start of a session and gives way at the end, before muscular fatigue shows.

What is measured, what remains a field reading

The mechanisms cited here were most often measured in adults, on precise laboratory tasks. Some were measured in very few people: three batsmen in Land and McLeod, eight adults in Santos and colleagues. Grouping them into one level comes from the pyramid, a practitioners' scheme never tested as such: to our knowledge, no study shows that these six skills form a block. The link between posture and letter reversals remains a hypothesis, and the transfer to sport a transposition. The test, stimulation and retest will tell you whether this transposition holds in the person you are working with.

Training perceptual-motor development in the task, starting Monday

The gaze organizes itself differently when the action is real. Matt Dicks, Chris Button and Keith Davids (2010) observed this in goalkeepers facing penalties. In front of a video or when answering aloud, they mostly looked at the kicker; when actually attempting the save, they split their gaze between the kicker and the ball.

So keep the action, and play with its constraints, in the spirit of the organism, task, environment model. With a child, change the size or speed of the ball, or have him catch it while walking. With an athlete, keep the technical movement and add a turning head, a target that changes at the last moment, an instruction in the middle of the movement. Alternate the predictable and the unpredictable: it is anticipation that you are growing.

A fragile component can be worked on separately for a few minutes, then returned immediately to the movement. In Neuro-Postural Reprogramming, each stimulation is checked by a test and a retest before being integrated into the session. For the overview of all five levels, go back to the complete pyramid of learning.

When the hand arrives late, look at where the eyes were, then at what the rest of the body was doing.

👉 I want to intervene in the right place.

Frequently asked questions about perceptual-motor development

What is perceptual-motor development?

It is the fourth level of the pyramid of learning by Taylor and Trott, taken up by Williams and Shellenberger. It groups six skills that couple perception and action in space: eye-hand coordination, oculomotor control, postural adjustment, language and auditory skills, visuospatial perception, attentional functions.

How does eye-hand coordination work?

The gaze precedes the hand. In the measurements by Johansson and colleagues (2001), the eyes land on the grip and then on the target, never on the hand itself. In the field, when faced with a late hand, first check where the gaze was.

What are the movements of oculomotor control?

Oculomotor control brings together two families. To stabilize the image: fixation, the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which compensates head movements within a few milliseconds, and the optokinetic reflex, which tracks the scenery scrolling by. To move the gaze: saccades, pursuit of a moving target, and vergence, which adjusts the two eyes between near and far.

Are letter reversals normal in children?

In a young child learning to write, yes. Mirror writing of digits and capital letters would be part of the path of almost all children (Fischer and Tazouti, 2012), and it fades as reading and writing become established. If it persists alongside other signs, professional advice is needed.

How do you train perceptual-motor development in an athlete?

In the real task, by playing on the speed of the ball, a changing target, a moving head or an instruction given during the action. Goalkeepers look differently when they actually attempt the save (Dicks et al., 2010). A fragile component is worked on separately, then returned immediately to the movement.

A child misses every ball and still reverses letters at the end of elementary school: who should you refer him to?

To the doctor who follows him, who can refer him to an occupational therapist, a psychomotor therapist or an orthoptist for an assessment. The movement professional observes, refers, then keeps working on movement. LabO RNP is neither medical nor paramedical, and comes as a complement to a care pathway, never in its place.

Sources

Strohmeyer H., Williams K., Schaub-George D. (1991). Developmental sequences for catching a small ball: a prelongitudinal screening. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 62(3), 257-266.

Johansson R.S., Westling G., Bäckström A., Flanagan J.R. (2001). Eye-hand coordination in object manipulation. Journal of Neuroscience, 21(17), 6917-6932.

Pozzo T., Berthoz A., Lefort L. (1990). Head stabilization during various locomotor tasks in humans. I. Normal subjects. Experimental Brain Research, 82(1), 97-106.

Massion J. (1992). Movement, posture and equilibrium: interaction and coordination. Progress in Neurobiology, 38(1), 35-56.

Santos M.J., Kanekar N., Aruin A.S. (2010). The role of anticipatory postural adjustments in compensatory control of posture: 1. Electromyographic analysis. Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 20(3), 388-397.

Hay L., Redon C. (1999). Feedforward versus feedback control in children and adults subjected to a postural disturbance. Experimental Brain Research, 125(2), 153-162.

Woollacott M., Shumway-Cook A. (2002). Attention and the control of posture and gait: a review of an emerging area of research. Gait and Posture, 16(1), 1-14.

Boonyong S., Siu K.-C., van Donkelaar P., Chou L.-S., Woollacott M.H. (2012). Development of postural control during gait in typically developing children: the effects of dual-task conditions. Gait and Posture, 35(3), 428-434.

Fischer J.-P., Tazouti Y. (2012). Unraveling the mystery of mirror writing in typically developing children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(1), 193-205.

Land M.F., McLeod P. (2000). From eye movements to actions: how batsmen hit the ball. Nature Neuroscience, 3(12), 1340-1345.

Mann D.T.Y., Williams A.M., Ward P., Janelle C.M. (2007). Perceptual-cognitive expertise in sport: a meta-analysis. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 29(4), 457-478.

Dicks M., Button C., Davids K. (2010). Examination of gaze behaviors under in situ and video simulation task constraints reveals differences in information pickup for perception and action. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 72(3), 706-720.

By the LabO RNP team