Biography: John is a Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for the Study of Motor Learning and Brain Repair at Johns Hopkins. He received his bachelor's and master's degree from Cambridge University, and his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. After completing an internship in Internal Medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, he returned to Columbia University for his residency in Neurology at the Neurological Institute of New York. He subsequently completed a research fellowship in motor control in the Center of Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia and a clinical fellowship in stroke at the Neurological Institute at Columbia University Medical Center.

Abstract: There has long been a divide between simple motor skills and what are deemed more complex cognitive abilities. Here I will discuss the problems associated with this dichotomy. I will then provide a progression of examples of how behaviors can be built up of explicit cognitive components and implicit control policies. I will argue that the notion of representation should be reserved for explicit cognitive processes.