Whether reaching, throwing, running or dancing, our natural tendency is to make smooth and precise movements. Out of the infinite number of ways that we could have made a particular movement, we generally pick the one that is the smoothest. The current thinking in the field of motor control is that the smooth, stereotyped trajectories made by our motor system are specially chosen to minimize jerk-iness and to maximize efficiency. Or could it be that smoothness is a by-product of a more fundamental computational goal of the motor system, a goal that only makes us look graceful by accomplishing something else?
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