Brain Representations of Motion Generation and Perception: Space-Time Geometries and the Arts

Many motor behavioral studies have aimed at inquiring what general principles underlie movement generation during multi-joint movements. Careful analysis of the observed behavior has led to the formulation of several kinematic laws of motion describing the invariant geometric, kinematic, and timing patterns of the upper limb and full-body movements. Similar kinematic laws of motion also characterize motion perception by the brain. Different theoretical approaches aimed at investigating the origins of these kinematic laws of motion, and the observed geometrical and temporal invariants describing motion production and perception have been developed. These included optimization theory and differential geometry models, both types of models aiming at accounting for the tight coupling existing between spatial and temporal features of natural movements. The proposed geometrical models assume that a mixture of several Euclidean and non-Euclidean space-time geometries subserve motion production and perception. This theory has enabled us also to examine the issues associated with motor compositionality—namely, how the brain constructs complex movements by composing together elementary motor primitives. Here I will also describe the possibilities offered by the unraveled motion production and perception principles for guiding research and scholarly studies concerning the expression of brain space-time geometries in movement and the arts. Open questions are how artists might be utilizing similar principles in different artistic domains, whether such principles are shared among different creative modalities, and whether they may also underlie esthetic judgments and emotional expressions in the arts.