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This article explores the idea of integration as a common theme for the next decade of motor control and learning research. Theoretical advances coupled with advances in understanding individual differences and brain-imaging techniques will facilitate novel perspectives through an integrated understanding of sensory, cognitive, and emotional processing for motor control and learning. Through the support of fundamental research, discoveries that cannot be predicted today will create new insights into how motor control and learning can inform education, health care, and sport. An integrated approach is critical for designs of novel products and procedures, as many new designs are not subject to large-scale trials. To achieve the most effective integration with the public and wider scientific community, researchers should explore novel methods for sharing our findings efficiently, ethically, and effectively.

Recent brain imaging research demonstrates that the use of internal visual imagery (IVI) or kinesthetic imagery (KIN) activates common and distinct brain areas. In this paper, we argue that combining the imagery modalities (IVI and KIN) will lead to a greater cognitive representation (with more brain areas activated), and this will cause a greater slalom-based motor performance compared with using IVI alone. To examine this assertion, we randomly allocated 56 participants to one of the three groups: IVI, IVI and KIN, or a math control group. Participants performed a slalom-based driving task in a driving simulator, with average lap time used as a measure of performance. Results revealed that the IVI and KIN group achieved significantly quicker lap times than the IVI and the control groups. The discussion includes a theoretical advancement on why the combination of imagery modalities might facilitate performance, with links made to the cognitive neuroscience literature and applied practice.

In Part I of this series I, we looked back at the 20^th century and re-examined the history of Motor Development research described in Clark & Whitall’s 1989 paper “What is Motor Development? The Lessons of History”. We now move to the 21^st century, where the trajectories of developmental research have evolved in focus, branched in scope, and diverged into three new areas. These have progressed to be independent research areas, co-existing in time. We posit that the research focus on Dynamical Systems at the end of the 20^th century has evolved into a Developmental Systems approach in the 21^st century. Additionally, the focus on brain imaging and the neural basis of movement have resulted in a new approach, which we entitled Developmental Motor Neuroscience. Finally, as the world-wide obesity epidemic identified in the 1990s threatened to become a public health crisis, researchers in the field responded by examining the role of motor development in physical activity and health-related outcomes; we refer to this research area as the Developmental Health approach. The glue that holds these research areas together is their focus on movement behavior as it changes across the lifespan.