A motor goal is a neurally planned motor outcome that is used to organize
motor control
Motor control is the regulation of movement in organisms that possess a nervous system. Motor control includes reflexes as well as directed movement.
To control movement, the nervous system must integrate multimodal sensory information (both f ...
.
Motor goals are experimentally shown to exist since planned movements can when disrupted adjust to achieve their planned outcome. If, for example, a person makes a movement of their
hand
A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered appendage located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "h ...
to touch or grasp something and unexpected their
arm is pushedtheir
brain automatically reorganizes the movement so it so achieves its intended aim. This also occurs if an arm is perturbed which results in an automatic correction that enables it to fulfill its planned spatial-temporal target. If a
lip articulating a
consonant is knocked, the
vocal apparatus makes a target related correction of movement.
Spoken words are sequences of motor movements organized around motor targets. The
motor cortex is involved in such compensatory adjustment of speech articulation.
References
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Motor control
Motor cognition