Book dossier

Dexterity and its development

by Mark L. Latash, Michael T. Turvey

Very few scientific works remain interesting 50 years after their initial publication. One notable exception to this observation is On Dexterity and Its Development, by Nicholai A. Bernstein, one of the premier minds in movement science. Included here in a translation from the original Russian, this work presents Bernstein's major ideas on the development and control of voluntary movement in general and the notion of dexterity in particular. Originally written in the 1940s, and published in 1991 in the Russian, the ideas in this book are anything but obsolete; in fact, we are just beginning to understand the depth and breadth of Bernstein's thinking. Included in addition to Bernstein's classic text are seven chapters written by contemporary scientists working in disciplines related to human movement. Written in a reader-friendly style similar to Bernstein's, the contributions are intended to illuminate and build on Bernstein's original work, as well as to be understandable and interesting to a wide audience, including scholars in psychology and movement science. The combination of the accessible style and the state of the art account of the processes underlying human voluntary movements, particularly dexterous ones, makes this book unique.