Perceptual and Motor Skills
Cognitive Psychology (General) | Perceptual & Motor Development | Sensation & Perception
Perceptual and Motor Skills has been dedicated, since 1949, to new science in learning, memory, executive functioning, perception, and motor skills, making it one of the earliest and most prolific journals in neuropsychology. In honor of this history and spirit of discovery, the journal’s new publisher, SAGE Publications, has removed author fees for printed pages, and its new Editor J.D. Ball, Ph.D., is re-emphasizing brain-behavior studies. Prospective contributors should continue to address similar perceptual and motor skills content, but should direct new manuscripts toward theory and practice under broad conceptual themes of Development (Biological/Environmental), Clinical Problems (Assessment/Intervention), and Peak Performance (Learning/Sports).
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
The purpose of Perceptual and Motor Skills is to encourage scientific originality and creativity in the fields of perception, learning, and motor skills. Experimental or theoretical articles are welcomed. Perceptual and Motor Skills will assign manuscripts into three major sections, each with two subsections: Human Development (Biological/Environmental), Clinical Problems (Assessment/Intervention), and Peak Performance (Sports/Learning).
| J.D. Ball | Eastern Virginia Medical School, USA |
| Jennifer M. Flaherty | Eastern Virginia Medical School, USA |
| Stuart Beattie | Bangor University, UK |
| Ryan D. Burns | University of Utah, USA |
| Christopher Dunbar | City University of New York (CUNY), USA |
| Tania S. Flink | Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton, FL, USA |
| Nobuyuki Inui | Naruto University of Education, Japan |
| Masaharu Kagawa | Kagawa Nutrition University, Japan |
| Marcel Kinsbourne | The New School, USA |
| Terry McMorris | University of Chichester, UK |
| Haris Memisevic | University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Mats Olof Niklasson | University of Bolton, UK |
| Robert J. Robertson | University of Pittsburgh, USA |
| Miguel Angel Gómez Ruano | Technical University of Madrid, Spain |
| David E. Sherwood | University of Colorado at Boulder, USA |
| Aldo Coelho Silva | Claretiano- Centro Universitário |
| Robert J. Spencer | University of Michigan, USA |
| Martin Voracek | University of Vienna, Austria |
| Steven P. Woods | University of Houston, USA |
| Nan-Ying Yu | I-Shou University, Taiwan |
| Roger Adams | University of Canberra, Australia |
| Neala Ambrosi-Randic | Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Croatia |
| Gustavo Aires de Arruda | University of Pernambuco, Brazil |
| Stefan Balko | Jan Evangelista Purkyne University, Czech Republic |
| Christopher Ballman | University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA |
| Michele Barca | “Kore” University of Enna, Italy |
| Daniel das Virgens Chagas | Rio de Janeiro State University Brazil |
| Gregory S. Ching | National Chengchi University, Taiwan |
| Germaine Cornelissen | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Ali Derakhshanh | Golesstan University, Iran |
| Henrik Gustafsson | Karstads University, Sweden |
| Jennifer Hogg | University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, USA |
| Ted Bruce Jaeger | Westminster College, USA |
| Yinxing Jin | Hainan Normal University, China |
| Tanja Kakebeeke | University Children’s Hospital Zurich, Switzerland |
| Joshua L. Keller | University of South Alabama, USA |
| Ya Hsien Ko | Asia Eastern University of Science and Technology (AEUST), Taiwan |
| Philip Kolba | Volition Labs, USA |
| Daniel Krause | University of Paderborn, Germany |
| Constantino Loucaides | Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth, Cyprus |
| James P. Loveless | Middle Tennessee State University, USA |
| Takashi Mizuguchi | Shinshu University, Japan |
| Diego Monteiro | Polytechnic of Leiria, Portugal |
| Stephanie Nevin | Virginia Beach Neuropsychology USA |
| Gleber Pereira | Universidade Positivo, Brazil |
| Bruno Ramalho Oliveira | Gama Filho University, Brazil |
| Katharine Seagly | Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan, USA |
| Ngien Siong Chin | Institute of Teacher Education Batu Lintang Campus, Malaysia |
| Michael L. Stutts | Eastern Virginia Medical School, USA |
| Luis Teixeira | University of Sao Paulo, Brazil |
| Herbert Ugrinowitsch | Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil |
| Robert Vaughan | York St. Johns University, England |
| Eric Vlahov | University of Tampa, USA |
| Michael Weinborn | University of Western Australia, Australia |
Perceptual and Motor Skills is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
Perceptual and Motor Skills recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Perceptual and Motor Skills submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pms to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.
Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Perceptual and Motor Skills will be reviewed.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Perceptual and Motor Skills will consider submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the Journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the Journal's author archiving policy. If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.6 English language editing services
5.1 Cover letter, title, keywords, and abstracts
5.2 Corresponding author contact details
5.4 Information required for completing your submission
6. On acceptance and publication
6.3 Access to your published article
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
1. What do we publish
Before submitting your manuscript to Perceptual and Motor Skills, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Perceptual and Motor Skills accepts experimental and theoretical articles dealing with perception or motor skills, especially as affected by experience, as well as articles on general methodology and special reviews.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance your article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
2. Editorial policies
Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
• The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
• The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
• The author has recommended the reviewer
• The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by two expert reviewers. Perceptual and Motor Skills utilizes a double-anonymized peer review process in which the reviewer and authors’ names and information are withheld from the other. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor who then makes the final decision.
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in Perceptual & Motor Skills. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.3.1 Third-party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.3.2 Writing Assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Perceptual and Motor Skills requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Perceptual and Motor Skills encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
It is the policy of Perceptual and Motor Skills to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.
For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here.
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.
Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant ethics committee or institutional review board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.
For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.
Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants.
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- Share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- Include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.
- Cite this data in your research
3. Publishing Policies
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Perceptual and Motor Skills and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Perceptual and Motor Skills offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript
Preferred formats for the text and tables of your manuscript are Word DOC, RTF, XLS. LaTeX files are also accepted. The text should be double-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left and right hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or 12 point. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
Perceptual and Motor Skills accepts manuscripts in accordance with APA style, 7th edition, with respect to writing in the first person active tense.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines
Figures supplied in color will appear in color online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. For specifically requested color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
Where a journal uses double-anonymized peer review, authors are required to submit:
- A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymized. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
- A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymized material. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.
See https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/Manuscript-preparation-for-double-anonymized-journal for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images, etc) alongside the full-text of the article. These will be subjected to peer-review alongside the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files, which can be found within our Manuscript Submission Guidelines page.
Perceptual and Motor Skills adheres to the APA reference style, 7th Edition. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file [OR] the Sage Vancouver EndNote output file
4.6 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
5. Submitting your manuscript
Perceptual and Motor Skills is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pms to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the Journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
5.1 Cover letter, title, keywords, and abstracts
Please supply a cover letter, title, short title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
All submitted manuscripts should have an accompanying cover letter that includes, at minimum, the following two criteria:
- Confirmation that this manuscript has been submitted solely to Perceptual and Motor Skills and will not be submitted for publication elsewhere until a final decision has been made.
- A statement that all authors have agreed upon the content of the article and the order of authorship.
5.2 Corresponding author contact details
Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.4 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article.
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
7. Further information
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Perceptual and Motor Skills editorial office as follows:
J.D. Ball, Ph.D., ABPP
Eastern Virginia Medical School
ball@emeritus.evms.edu
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com