Abstract
Our objective is to understand behavioral versatility of animals from the perspective of well-coordinated rhythmic and non-rhythmic movements. To this end, we focus on an ophiuroid as a simple good model living organism that exhibits self-organized role assignment of rhythmic and non-rhythmic arm movements in locomotion. Although we have reproduced such versatile arm movements by using an active rotator model that can describe both oscillatory and excitatory properties, coordination of movements has been achieved in a specifically limited situation. In order to overcome this issue, we reexamine the model so that the role assignment of arm movements is realized in more general situations. Simulation results show that the ophiuroid omnidirectional locomotion in response to an attractant or repellent stimulus is successfully realized by using the proposed model.
