Visual cues influence motor coordination: behavioral results and potential neural mechanisms mediating perception-action coupling and response selection.

Here we review behavioral and brain imaging results on stimulus-response selection in the context of bimanual movements, which is a prototypical paradigm frequently used to investigate the coordination of complex motor behavior. We propose that stimulus-response selection is constrained at the motor, perceptual, and cognitive levels, with the relative importance of each dependent on the task context. Motor constraints seem to dominate when response selection requirements are low, whereas perceptual and cognitive constraints become increasingly important when the appropriate movement has to be associated with a visual cue. We argue that certain cue features determine how task goals are conceptualized, which influences how a particular motor response is selected and implemented by the nervous system.