The purpose of the study is to outline a computational architecture fo
r the intelligent processing of sensorimotor patterns. The focus is on
the nature of the internal representations of the outside world which
are necessary for planning and other goal-oriented functions. A model
of cortical map dynamics and self-organization is proposed that integ
rates a number of concepts and methods partly explored in the field. T
he novelty and the biological plausibility is related to the global ar
chitecture which allows one to deal with sensorimotor patterns in a co
ordinate-free way, using population codes as distributed internal repr
esentations of external variables and the coupled dynamics of cortical
maps as a general tool of trajectory formation. The basic computation
al features of the model are demonstrated in the case of articulatory
speech synthesis and some of the metric properties are evaluated by me
ans of simple simulation studies. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All r
ights reserved.