Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

In cognitive science, computation is largely accompanied with representational theory of mind. Yet, it remains unclear whether this companionship also appears in the realm of sensorimotor control. Grush’s (2004) and Pezzulo’s (2008, 2011) account of anticipatory representations provide a limited answer, as they are only suitable for forward models, but not the entire sensorimotor control. Rescorla’s (2016) representational explanation for sensorimotor psychology addresses several intentional states considered in Bayesian inference and optimal modeling. However, the above accounts does not explain how motor commands are produced and chosen in the course of sensorimotor control for maintaining accuracy of goal-achievement. The present paper aims to explain it with a representational account by considering instrumental representations of sensorimotor control, which appear at the intermediate level and are exemplified by motor commands and costs. Such representations do not presume decouplability, as they need to run on-line in the maintenance of accuracy.