Neural correlates of infant action processing relate to theory of mind in early childhood

The mechanisms that support infant action processing are thought to be involved in the development of later social cognition. While a growing body of research demonstrates longitudinal links between action processing and explicit theory of mind (TOM), it remains unclear why this link emerges in some measures of action encoding and not others. In this paper, we recruit neural measures as a unique lens into which aspects of human infant action processing (i.e., action encoding and action execution; age 7 months) are related to preschool TOM (age 3 years; n = 31). We test whether individual differences in recruiting the sensorimotor system or attention processes during action encoding predict individual differences in TOM. Results indicate that reduced occipital alpha during action encoding predicts TOM at age 3. This finding converges with behavioral work and suggests that attentional processes involved in action encoding may support TOM. We also test whether neural processing during action execution draws on the proto‐substrates of effortful control (EC). Results indicate that frontal alpha oscillatory activity during action execution predicted EC at age 3—providing strong novel evidence that infant brain activity is longitudinally linked to EC. Further, we demonstrate that EC mediates the link between the frontal alpha response and TOM. This indirect effect is specific in terms of direction, neural response, and behavior. Together, these findings converge with behavioral research and demonstrate that domain general processes show strong links to early infant action processing and TOM.     

The link between infant attention to goal‐directed action and later theory of mind abilities

Various studies have shown that infants in their first year of life are able to interpret human actions as goal‐directed. It is argued that this understanding is a precondition for understanding intentional actions and attributing mental states. Moreover, some authors claim that this early action understanding is a precursor of later Theory of Mind (ToM) development. To test this, we related 6‐month‐olds’ performance in an action interpretation task to their performance in ToM tasks at the age of 4 years. Action understanding was assessed using a modified version of the Woodward‐paradigm ( Woodward, 1999 ). At the age of 4 years, the same children were tested with the German version of the ToM scale developed by Wellman and Liu (2004 ). Results revealed a correlation between infants’ decrement of attention to goal‐directed action and their ability to solve a false belief task at the age of 4 years with no modulation by language abilities. Our results indicate a link between infant attention to goal‐directed action and later theory of mind abilities.     

Dual effects on choice of conditioned reinforcement frequency and conditioned reinforcement value

Pigeons were presented with a concurrent‐chains schedule in which the total time to primary reinforcement was equated for the two alternatives (VI 30 s VI 60 s vs. VI 60 s VI 30 s). In one set of conditions, the terminal links were signaled by the same stimulus, and in another set of conditions they were signaled by different stimuli. Choice was in favor of the shorter terminal link when the terminal links were differentially signaled but in favor of the shorter initial link (and longer terminal link) when the terminal links shared the same stimulus. Preference reversed regularly with reversals of the stimulus condition and was unrelated to the discrimination between the two terminal links during the nondifferential stimulus condition. The present results suggest that the relative value of the terminal‐link stimuli and the relative rate of conditioned reinforcer presentation are important influences on choice behavior, and that models of conditioned reinforcement need to include both factors.     

Pichon Rivière's psychoanalytic contributions: Some comparisons with object relations and modern developments in psychoanalysis

Enrique Pichon Rivière's work, fundamental to Latin American and European psychoanalytic development, is largely unknown in English‐language psychoanalysis. Pichon's central contribution, the link (el vinculo), describes relational bonds in all dimensions. People are born into, live in, and relate through links. Psychic structure is built of links that then influence external interaction. Links, expressed in mind, body and external action, continuously join internal and external worlds. Links have two axes: vertical axis links connect generations through unconscious transgenerational transmission; horizontal axis links connect persons to life partners, family, community and society. For Pichon, treatment constitutes a spiral process through which interpretation disrupts existent structures, promoting new emergent organizations at successively deeper levels. Psychic and link structures evolve over time unless repetitive cycles stunt growth. For Pichon, transference is constituted in the here‐and‐now‐with‐me because of the analytic link. Pichon also undertook family and group psychoanalysis where individuals become spokespersons for unconscious links and family secrets. He developed operative groups that apply psychoanalysis to both analytic and non‐analytic tasks. After describing Pichon's major contributions, the paper compares Pichon Rivière's ideas with those of Klein, Fairbairn, Bion, Winnicott and Bowlby, and contemporary writers including Ogden, Kaës, and Ferro whose works echo Pichon Rivière's thought.     

Resistance to change produced by access to fixed-delay versus variable-delay terminal links

Pigeons' responding was reinforced on a multiple schedule consisting of two two-link chain schedules presented in regular alternation. Responding in initial links (always variable-interval 60-s) produced a key-color change and access to a terminal link. The terminal link for one chain provided food after a fixed delay (fixed-interval or fixed-time); the terminal link for the other provided food after a variable delay (variable-interval or variable-time). The average duration of the terminal-link schedules was varied across conditions, but in every condition the arithmetic mean of the variable-delay terminal-link schedule was equal to the duration of the fixed delay. Response rates were higher in the initial links of the chains with the variable-delay terminal links. Response-decreasing operations (satiation, extinction) were used after performances reached asymptote. Response rates maintained by access to variable-delay terminal links tended to be more resistant to change than were rates maintained by access to fixed-delay terminal links. These results are consistent with the preference for variable- over fixed-interval terminal links observed with concurrent-chains schedules, suggesting (1) that immediacy of reinforcement influences the conditioned reinforcing potency of access to a terminal link and (2) that choice in concurrent chains and resistance of responding to change may be manifestations of the same effect of reinforcement.     

Action mechanisms for social cognition: behavioral and neural correlates of developing Theory of Mind

Many psychological theories posit foundational links between two fundamental constructs: (1) our ability to produce, perceive, and represent action; and (2) our ability to understand the meaning and motivation behind the action (i.e. Theory of Mind; ToM). This position is contentious, however, and long‐standing competing theories of social‐cognitive development debate roles for basic action‐processing in ToM. Developmental research is key to investigating these hypotheses, but whether individual differences in neural and behavioral measures of motor action relate to social‐cognitive development is unknown. We examined 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children's (N = 26) EEG mu‐desynchronization during production of object‐directed action, and explored associations between mu‐desynchronization and children's behavioral motor skills, behavioral action‐representation abilities, and behavioral ToM. For children with high (but not low) mu‐desynchronization, motor skill related to action‐representation abilities, and action‐representation mediated relations between motor skill and ToM. Results demonstrate novel foundational links between action‐processing and ToM, suggesting that basic motor action may be a key mechanism for social‐cognitive development, thus shedding light on the origins and emergence of higher social cognition.     

Devoutness to Islam and the Attitudinal Acceptance of Political Violence Among Young Muslims in Germany

This article investigates the links between religious beliefs and capitalist mentalities—namely devoutness to Islam and hierarchic self‐interest (HSI)—and violence‐accepting attitudes among the young Muslim migrant population in Germany. Following a situational perspective, these links are analyzed under different individual conditions structured by (socioeconomic) precariousness and education. Based on framing approaches and concepts from socialization theory, we derive the following hypothesis: The links between religious beliefs and capitalist mentalities and the attitudinal acceptance of violence are stronger among individuals with low levels of education and a precarious economic status (compared to high education/nonprecarious status). The strongest link is expected for a negative status inconsistency (high education/precarious economic status). Structural equation models for data from a random probability sample of 350 Muslims (aged 14–32 years) in Germany indicate that attitudinal acceptance of violence among young Muslims is not predicted by devoutness to Islam but by economic precariousness and by acceptance of capitalist values of the HSI belief system.     

SOME EFFECTS OF PROCEDURAL VARIATIONS ON CHOICE RESPONDING IN CONCURRENT CHAINS

The present research used pigeons in a three‐key operant chamber and varied procedural features pertaining to both initial and terminal links of concurrent chains. The initial links randomly alternated on the side keys during a session, while the terminal links always appeared on the center key. Both equal and unequal initial‐link schedules were employed, with either differential or nondifferential terminal‐link stimuli across conditions. The research was designed to neutralize initial‐ and terminal‐link spatial cues in order to gain a clearer understanding of the roles of conditioned reinforcement and delayed primary reinforcement in choice. With both equal and unequal initial links and with differential terminal‐link stimuli, all pigeons reliably preferred the chain with the shorter terminal link. However, with equal initial links and nondifferential stimuli, all pigeons were indifferent. With unequal initial links and nondifferential stimuli, some pigeons were also indifferent, while others actually reversed and preferred the chain with the shorter initial link, even though it was followed by the longer terminal link. The decrease if not reversal of the previous preferences implies that preferences in concurrent chains are a function of the conditioned reinforcement afforded by terminal‐link stimuli, rather than delayed primary reinforcement.     

The relationship between attentional capture and deviations in movement trajectories in a selective reaching task

According to action-centered models of attention, attention and action systems are tightly linked such that the capture of attention by an object automatically initiates response-producing processes. In support of this link, studies have shown that movements deviate towards or away from non-target stimuli. These deviations are thought to emerge because attentional capture by non-target stimuli generates responses that summate with target responses to develop a combined movement vector. The present study tested attention–action coupling by examining movement trajectories in the presence of non-target stimuli that do or do not capture attention. Previous research has revealed that non-target cue stimuli only capture attention when they share critical features with the target. Cues that do not share this feature do not capture attention. Following these studies and their findings, participants in the present study aimed to the location of a single white square (onset singleton target) or a single red square presented with two white squares (color singleton target). In separate blocks, targets were preceded by non-predictive cues that did or did not share the target feature (color or onset singleton cues). The critical finding of the present study was that trajectory effects mirrored the temporal interference effects in that deviations were only observed when cue and target properties matched. Deviations were not observed when the cue and target properties did not match. These data provide clear support for the link between attentional capture and the activation of response-producing processes.     

Comparing preference and resistance to change in constant- and variable-duration schedule components

Two experiments explored preference and resistance to change in concurrent chains in which the terminal links were variable-interval schedules that ended either after a single reinforcer had been delivered (variable duration) or after a fixed period of access to the schedule (constant duration). In Experiment 1, pigeons' preference between the same pair of terminal links overmatched relative reinforcement rate when the terminal links were of constant duration, but not when they were of variable duration. Responding during the richer terminal link decreased less, relative to baseline, when response-independent food was presented during the initial links according to a variable-time schedule. In Experiment 2, all subjects consistently preferred a terminal link that consisted of 20-s access to a variable-interval 20-s schedule over a terminal link that ended after one reinforcer had been delivered by the same schedule. Results of resistance-to-change tests corresponded to preference, as responding during the constant-duration terminal link decreased less, relative to baseline, when disrupted by both response-independent food during the initial links and prefeeding. Overall, these data extend the general covariation of preference and resistance to change seen in previous studies. However, they suggest that reinforcement numerosity, including variability in the number of reinforcers per terminal-link entry, may sometimes affect preference and resistance to change in ways that are difficult to explain in terms of current models.     

Perceptual and motor contributions to the negative compatibility effect

The current study focused on contributions to the negative compatibility effect (NCE) from object-updating at the perceptual level and self-inhibition (i.e., automatic motor inhibition) at the response (motor) level. We hypothesized that contributions to the NCE from these two levels were moderated by the strength of stimulus and reaction (S–R) link: object-updating should have greater impact on the NCE with weak S–R links, but both object-updating and self-inhibition should impact on the NCE when the S–R links became strong. To test this hypothesis, in two experiments we used a novel type of stimuli and manipulated mask relevance (relevant versus irrelevant mask) and prime/target compatibility. Participants performed two tasks over three successive days. Results showed that under equivalent masking effectiveness between the two conditions of mask, a significant NCE was observed only in the relevant mask condition when the S–R links were weak, but both close to equal NCE sizes were observed in the two mask conditions when the S–R links were acquired through practice. The results indicated that perceptual and motor contributions to the NCE were moderated by the strength of S–R links, if the strength of the links was too weak to trigger the following inhibition, the NCE primarily originated from object-updating at the perceptual level; if the strength of the links was reinforced by practice, which exceeded the inhibitory threshold, the NCE originated from both object-updating and self-inhibition, but the latter was primarily responsible.     

Neuroticism and Attitudes Toward Action in 19 Countries

Although individuals scoring high on Neuroticism tend to avoid taking action when faced with challenges, Neuroticism is also characterized by impulsivity. To explore cognitive biases related to this costly behavior pattern, we tested whether individuals who rated themselves as higher in Neuroticism would evaluate the general concepts of action and inaction as, respectively, more negative and positive. We further investigated whether anxiety and depression would mediate and individualism‐collectivism would moderate these relations in a large international sample. Participants (N = 3,827 college students; 69% female) from 19 countries completed surveys measuring Neuroticism, attitudes toward action and inaction, depression, anxiety, and individualism‐collectivism. Hierarchical linear models tested the above predictions. Neuroticism negatively correlated with attitudes toward action and positively correlated with attitudes toward inaction. Furthermore, anxiety was primarily responsible for emotionally unstable individuals’ less positive attitudes toward action, and individuals who endorsed more collectivistic than individualistic beliefs showed a stronger negative association between Neuroticism and attitudes toward action. Researchers and practitioners interested in understanding and remediating the negative consequences of Neuroticism should pay greater attention to attitudes toward action and inaction, particularly focusing on their links with anxiety and individualism‐collectivism.     

Dancing Contact Improvisation with Luce Irigaray: Intra‐Action and Elemental Passions

This article takes as its point of departure Luce Irigaray's Elemental Passions, in which a woman‐speaker tries to make her lover and the discipline of philosophy understand that she is not how they have imagined her to be; that she is not at all but that she keeps becoming through perpetual movement. The article investigates Irigaray's investment in a form of materialist difference feminism that offers conceptual links to the posthumanist work of Karen Barad's agential realism, especially her theorization of intra‐action. The link between Irigaray and Barad is established via a diffractive reading that incorporates the dance/movement research practice of Contact Improvisation. Although expressed through written language, Elemental Passions creates the impression of the woman‐speaker dancing, of encountering herself, her environment, and her lover through moved and moving contact, searching for a practice of moving‐together, feeling‐with, and feeling‐between that can be experienced in an improvised dance duet. Exploring how touch and the sharing of weight in Contact Improvisation challenges boundaries and establishes ever‐changing configurations and entanglements between dancers, the article proposes that Irigaray's woman‐speaker envisions herself as a posthuman/ist woman and that improvised dancing offers a practice of intra‐action through which she can encounter the world in her becoming.     

Suboptimal choice and initial‐link requirement

Pigeons (n = 14) were trained in a concurrent‐chains suboptimal choice procedure that tested the effect of an increased ratio requirement in the initial links. Fixed‐ratio 1 and 25 conditions were manipulated within subjects in a counterbalanced order. In all conditions, distinct terminal‐link stimuli on a suboptimal alternative signaled either primary reinforcement (20% of the time) or extinction (80% of the time). On an optimal alternative, two distinct terminal‐link stimuli each signaled a 50% chance of primary reinforcement. Preference for the suboptimal alternative was significantly attenuated, and in some birds completely reversed, by the larger response requirement irrespective of condition order. This larger response requirement also generated a notable increase in between‐subject variability. A measure of cumulative choice responding is introduced to mitigate the problems associated with traditional session averages. Ordinal predictions of some current theories of suboptimal choice are also considered in light of the results.     

Individual differences in attentional capability are linked to creative decision making

There is a link between visual attention and creativity concerning the generation of rare and flexible decisions/solutions. However, the relationship between individual differences in attentional capability and creative decision making has not yet been investigated in detail. The current study scrutinized this link in a sport‐specific divergent thinking task including videos of real game situations and compared performances between football players being divided into two different expertise levels (expert and amateur football players). We conducted a multiple linear regression analysis to assess whether attentional capability along the attentional focus’ meridians (horizontal, vertical, diagonal) and participants’ expertise level predict creative decision making. The attentional capability along the horizontal meridian of participants’ attentional focus and participants’ expertise level emerged as positive predictors. The findings provide evidence of a relationship between football players’ spatial distribution of attention that match the demands of their sport and an expertise advantage in sport‐specific creative decision making. Implications are not only important for sports, but also for all areas in which spatial attention is required in order to generate unusual solutions.     

Action experience in infancy predicts visual-motor functional connectivity during action anticipation

Despite substantial evidence indicating a close link between action production and perception in early child development, less is known about how action experience shapes the processes of perceiving and anticipating others’ actions. Here, we developed a novel approach to capture functional connectivity specific to certain brain areas to investigate how action experience changes the networks involved in action perception and anticipation. Nine- and-12-month-old infants observed familiar (grasping) and novel (tool-use) actions while their brain activity was measured using EEG. Infants’ motor competence of both actions was assessed. A link between action experience and connectivity patterns was found, particularly during the anticipation period. During action anticipation, greater motor competence in grasping predicted greater functional connectivity between visual (occipital alpha) and motor (central alpha) regions relative to global levels of whole-brain EEG connectivity. Furthermore, visual and motor regions tended to be more coordinated in response to familiar versus novel actions and for older than younger participants. Critically, these effects were not found in the control networks (frontal-central; frontal-occipital; parietal-central; parietal-occipital), suggesting a unique role of visual-motor networks on the link between motor skills and action encoding.

Highlights

• Infants’ motor development predicted functional connectivity patterns during action anticipation.
• Faster graspers, and older infants, showed a stronger ratio of visual-motor neural coherence.
• Overall whole-brain connectivity was modulated by age and familiarity with the actions.
• Measuring inter-site relative to whole-brain connectivity can capture specific brain-behavior links.
• Measures of phase-based connectivity over time are sensitive to anticipatory action.

     

Action and language: Contextual action theory in counselling

Contextual action theory is presented as a conceptual framework useful for grounding the recent work in counselling and career development called Life Design. Based on the premise of the goal-directed nature of human action, this approach has links to language in theories of naive action and attribution, and theory of mind. Contextual action theory has an associated research method that has been used to generate a range of research studies that have described actions and projects in the career development and counselling domains. The link that contextual action theory provides between research and practice allows the identification of five tasks for the counselling practitioner informed by this approach.     

Visual capture and human error

We investigated relationships between everyday error rates, susceptibility to stimulus‐driven (i.e. external) capture of visual attention and working memory. Using an eye‐tracking task called the antisaccade paradigm, we found that relatively error‐prone subjects made significantly more unintended, stimulus‐driven eye movements. This finding suggests a link between error‐proneness and a tendency towards environmental (versus volitional) control of behaviour. No evidence was found for a connection between working memory capacity and error proneness or eye movements, though range restriction may have affected the working memory results. The findings are compatible with the view that some mishaps stem from environmental capture and triggering of inappropriate actions, and that individuals vary in their susceptibility to capture. Some implications are that: (1) mishaps might be reduced by redesigning tasks to reduce capture errors, e.g. by restructuring critical tasks to eliminate action sequences with common initial stages; (2) the antisaccade task may be a useful dependent measure in research on how stressors (e.g. fatigue, noise, temperature) increase the likelihood of mishaps. Specifically, since antisaccade performance was correlated with reports of real‐world mistakes in the current study, antisaccade scores may allow useful predictions about how accident probability varies as a function of different conditions. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From semantics to syntax and back again: argument structure in the third year of life

An essential part of the human capacity for language is the ability to link conceptual or semantic representations with syntactic representations. On the basis of data from spontaneous production, suggested that young children acquire such links on a verb-by-verb basis, with little in the way of a general understanding of linguistic argument structure. Here, we suggest that a receptive understanding of argument structure--including principles linking syntax and conceptual/semantic structure--appears earlier. In a forced-choice pointing task we have shown that toddlers in the third year of life can map a single scene (involving a novel causative action paired with a novel verb) onto two distinct syntactic frames (transitive and intransitive). This suggests that even before toddlers begin generalizing argument structure in their own speech, they have some representation of conceptual/semantic categories, syntactic categories, and a system that links the two.     

Omission and commission in judgment and decision making: Understanding and linking action‐inaction effects using the concept of normality

Research on action and inaction in judgment and decision making now spans over 35 years, with ever‐growing interest. Accumulating evidence suggests that action and inaction are perceived and evaluated differently, affecting a wide array of psychological factors from emotions to morality. These asymmetries have been shown to have real impact on choice behavior in both personal and interpersonal contexts, with implications for individuals and society. We review impactful action‐inaction related phenomena, with a summary and comparison of key findings and insights, reinterpreting these effects and mapping links between effects using norm theory's (Kahneman & Miller, 1986) concept of normality. Together, these aim to contribute towards an integrated understanding of the human psyche regarding action and inaction.