Perceptual and Motor Skills
Cognitive Psychology (General) | Perceptual & Motor Development | Sensation & Perception
Since 1949, Perceptual and Motor Skills has been dedicated to publishing basic and applied research in perception, cognition, and motor skills. In January 2025, Dr Oliver R. Runswick took the helm as Editor-in-Chief and aims to renew the journal’s focus on its core topics while promoting a new era of high-quality and open science. We will consider theoretical and empirical work as well as high-quality scoping reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.
The journal aims to publish high-quality basic and applied work in four key themes:
- Measurement and methods in perceptual and motor skills
- Learning and development of perceptual and motor skills
- Clinical issues in perceptual and motor skills
- Performance of perceptual and motor skills.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Submit your manuscript today at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pms.
We encourage work with a direct focus on vision, perception, cognition, learning, and motor control. The journal aims to publish high-quality basic and applied work in four key themes:
(i) Measurement and methods in perceptual and motor skills
(ii) Learning and development of perceptual and motor skills
(iii) Clinical issues in perceptual and motor skills
(iv) Performance of perceptual and motor skills.
The journal has a strong history of studying perceptual and motor skills in fields as diverse as clinical populations and high-performance sports. However, we welcome basic research and applied work from many from many domains, such as music, dance, education, aerospace, and services.
| Oliver Runswick | King’s College London, UK |
| Stuart Beattie | Bangor University, UK |
| Ali Derakshanh | Golestan University, Iran |
| Katie Fitton-Davies | Liverpool John Moores University, UK |
| Vicky Gottwald | Bangor University, UK |
| Yinxing Jin | Hainan Normal University, China |
| Masaharu Kagawa | Kagawa Nutrition University, Japan |
| Elmar Kal | Brunel University London, UK |
| Philip Kearney | University of Limerick, Ireland |
| Sicong (Zone) Liu | South China Normal University, China |
| Terry McMorris | University of Chichester, UK |
| Haris Memisevic | University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Chris Pocock | University of Chichester, UK |
| Miguel Angel Gómez Ruano | Technical University of Madrid, Spain |
| Donghyun Ryu | Seoul National University, South Korea |
| Marie Simonet | ETH Zürich, Switzerland |
| Harjiv Singh | University of Michigan, USA |
| Robert J. Spencer | University of Michigan, USA |
| Luke Wilkins | La Trobe University, Australia |
| 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 |
| Štefan Balkó | Jan Evangelista Purkyne University, Czech Republic |
| Christopher Ballman | University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA |
| Michele Barca | “Kore” University of Enna, Italy |
| Gavin Buckingham | University of Exeter, UK |
| Daniel das Virgens Chagas | Rio de Janeiro State University Brazil |
| Germaine Cornelissen | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Ali Derakhshanh | Golestan University, Iran |
| Henrik Gustafsson | Karstads University, Sweden |
| Jennifer Hogg | University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, USA |
| Ted Bruce Jaeger | Westminster College, USA |
| Guanlan Kang | Bejing Sport University, China |
| 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 |
| Logan Markwell | Research Collective, USA |
| Takashi Mizuguchi | Shinshu University, Japan |
| Diego Monteiro | Polytechnic of Leiria, Portugal |
| Stephanie Nevin | Virginia Beach Neuropsychology USA |
| Gleber Pereira | Universidade Positivo, Brazil |
| Sanjram Premjit Khanganba | Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India |
| Bruno Ramalho Oliveira | Gama Filho University, Brazil |
| Esmaeel Saemi | Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran |
| Katharine Seagly | Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan, USA |
| David E. Sherwood | University of Colorado at Boulder, 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 |
| Martin Voracek | University of Vienna, Austria |
| Lawrence Warren-Westgate | University of Nottingham, UK |
| Michael Weinborn | University of Western Australia, Australia |
| Gary Wilkerson | University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines for Perceptual and Motor Skills
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pms to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
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, that you are submitting the work for first publication in Perceptual and Motor Skills and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
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.
Perceptual and Motor Skills utilizes a double-blind review process. All manuscripts submitted to the journal with suitable content, as determined by the editors, will be subject to comment and external review by at least 2 peer reviewers. Critical editing is combined with specific suggestions from multiple referees of each paper to help authors meet standards.
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.
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.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.]
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
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.
3. Publishing Policies
3.1 Publication ethics
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.
3.2 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. For more information please visit the SAGE Choice website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit SAGE Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.
Authors are responsible for obtaining 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 visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway
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.
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 colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from SAGE after receipt of your accepted article.
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 conforms to the SAGE house style. View the SAGE UK House Style guidelines.
Perceptual and Motor Skills adheres to the APA reference style. 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.
5.1 How to submit 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 http://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.
5.2 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
5.3 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.
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 sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.
6.2 Access to your published article
SAGE provides authors with online access to their final article.
Online First allows final revision articles (completed articles in queue for assignment to an upcoming issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a final journal issue which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. For more information please visit our Online First Fact Sheet
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