The legacy of automatic/voluntary dissociation in apraxia

Automatic/Voluntary dissociation in apraxia has been called into play to account for the paucity of reports of apraxic deficits in everyday life. The consequences of this claim have been both practical and theoretical. Evidence gathered from the literature allowed us to question this assumption, which is widely accepted in the neuropsychological realm. In this critical review it is maintained that the time is ripe to abandon this Lipmanian dichotomy if we want to make some progress in the understanding of apraxia. Instead of theorizing about the possible cognitive (or anatomical) bases of automatic/voluntary dissociation, future studies should concentrate on the investigation of the specific functional deficits underlying apraxic phenomena.