In this book human perception and performance are discussed within the framework of the theory of self-organizing complex systems. To this aim, a variety of phenomena and experimental findings in the research field are presented and an introduction into the theory of self-organization is given, with a focus on amplitude equations, order parameter and Lotka-Volterra equations. It is shown that relating the experimental findings to the mathematical models provides an explicit account for the causal nature of human perception and performance. In particular, the notion of determinism versus free will is discussed in this context. The first part of the book is devoted to investigate performance guided by perception: stair climbing, stepping over obstacles, and tool grasping are presented in detail. Perceptually-relevant control parameters entering the mathematical models are identified. Chains of perceptions and actions together with their underlying mechanisms are then presented and experimental phenomena such a selective attention, adaptation of sitting height perception, priming, retrieval-induced forgetting, functional fixedness and memory effects exhibiting hysteresis with negative sign are discussed in this context. The second part deals with several specific topics such as child development and aging, dreaming and thinking, and applications in clinical psychology. In particular, drug induced hallucination patterns, perception under schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive rituals are discussed. The third part is devoted to modeling issues, connecting experimental findings and mathematical models. This text addresses researchers and graduate students in psychology, physics, applied mathematics, kinesiology, and the sport sciences wishing to learn about the foundations of the field. Written for a mixed audience, experiments and concepts will be presented non-technically throughout for the general reader. Every chapter contains more advanced sections for modelers in the field of physics and applied mathematics.

Till D. Frank received his diploma in physics from the University of Stuttgart in 1996 under the supervision of Prof. Hermann Haken. He obtained his PhD in Human Movement Sciences from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2001, and his Habilitation in Physics from the University of Münster in 2006. Till D. Frank is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut affiliated with both the Department of Psychology and the Department of Physics.