degrees of freedom problem

the fact that, in most movement situations, the brain has access to many more degrees of freedom than are necessary to accomplish the task and thus selects which posture or movement trajectory to use from the large set of those that are possible.

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Psychology term of the day

January 5th 2025

common region

a recently introduced gestalt principle of organization, stating that objects sharing a common bounded region of space appear to belong together and tend to be perceived as a distinct group. For example, animals in a fenced-in enclosure are more likely to be seen as a group than are the same distribution of animals arrayed in open space. Also called law of common region; principle of common region. [proposed in 1992 by U.S. psychologist Stephen E. Palmer (1948– )]