ABSTRACT
Observing individuals engage in action through the life span leads inevitably to the realization that certain properties of movement forms and their outcomes persist over time whereas others tend to change. Persistence is evident in that some properties of movement sequences remain essentially invariant to a given action, whereas other properties vary either systematically or unsystematically. Furthermore, the fact that similar properties of movement sequences are evident in different actions suggests that the persistence of movement organization is present across activity categories. Bernstein, in his lifetime collection of writings on the physiology and mechanics of human movement, sketched out the sig nificance of change and persistence for a theory of movement coordination, control, and skill. Some new elements of his theoretical framework for the learning and performance of movement skills have been introduced here, in this volume on dexterity and its development.
