Action history influences eye movements

Recent research has revealed that simple actions can have a profound effect on subsequent perception – people are faster to find a target that shares features with a previously acted on object even when those features are irrelevant to their task (the action effect). However, the majority of the evidence for this interaction between action and perception has come from manual response data. Therefore, it is unknown whether action affects early visual search processes, if it modulates post-attentional-selection processes, or both. To investigate this, we tracked participants’ spontaneous eye movements as they performed an action effect task. In two experiments we found that participants looked more quickly to the colour of an object they had previously acted on, compared to if they had viewed but not acted on the object, showing that action influenced early visual search processes. Additionally, there was evidence for post-selection effects as well. The results suggest that prior action affects both pre-selection and post-selection processes – spontaneously guiding attention to, and maintaining it on, objects that were previously important to the observer.     

Interaction of Perception and Action in Discrete and Continuous Rapid Aiming Tasks

Previously, we have shown that discrete and continuous rapid aiming tasks are governed by distinct visuomotor control mechanisms by assessing the combined visual illusion effects on the perceived and effective index of difficulty (ID). All participants were perceptually biased by the combined visual illusion before they performed the rapid aiming tasks. In the current study, the authors manipulated the order of performing perceptual and motor tasks to examine whether perceptual or motor experience with the illusory visual target would influence the subsequent perceived and effective ID in discrete and continuous tapping tasks. The results supported our hypothesis showing that perceptual experience with the illusory visual target in the discrete condition reduced the effective ID in the subsequent discrete tapping task, and motor experience with the illusory visual target in the continuous condition reduced the illusion effects on the perceived ID in the subsequent perceptual judgment task. The study demonstrates the coinfluence of perception and action, and suggests that perception and action influence one another with different magnitude depending on the spatial frame of reference used to perform the perceptuomotor task.     

Action orientation overcomes the ego depletion effect

It has been consistently demonstrated that initial exertion of self‐control had negative influence on people's performance on subsequent self‐control tasks. This phenomenon is referred to as the ego depletion effect. Based on action control theory, the current research investigated whether the ego depletion effect could be moderated by individuals' action versus state orientation. Our results showed that only state‐oriented individuals exhibited ego depletion. For individuals with action orientation, however, their performance was not influenced by initial exertion of self‐control. The beneficial effect of action orientation against ego depletion in our experiment results from its facilitation for adapting to the depleting task.     

The Goal Circuit Model: A Hierarchical Multi‐Route Model of the Acquisition and Control of Routine Sequential Action in Humans

Human control of action in routine situations involves a flexible interplay between (a) task‐dependent serial ordering constraints; (b) top‐down, or intentional, control processes; and (c) bottom‐up, or environmentally triggered, affordances. In addition, the interaction between these influences is modulated by learning mechanisms that, over time, appear to reduce the need for top‐down control processes while still allowing those processes to intervene at any point if necessary or if desired. We present a model of the acquisition and control of goal‐directed action that goes beyond existing models by operationalizing an interface between two putative systems—a routine and a non‐routine system—thereby demonstrating how explicitly represented goals can interact with the emergent task representations that develop through learning in the routine system. The gradual emergence of task representations offers an explanation for the transfer of control with experience from the non‐routine goal‐based system to the routine system. At the same time it allows action selection to be sensitive both to environmental triggers and to biasing from multiple levels within the goal system.     

Preferred Difficulty and Subjective Probability in Different Action Phases

Drawing on Gollwitzer's deliberative–implemental mindset distinction (P. M. Gollwitzer, 1990), it was predicted that people who are deliberating on different actions or goals would be more cautious or more realistic in their expectation of success in subsequent tasks than people who are going to implement a chosen action or goal. Participants were given a choice between different test-materials. They were interrupted before (deliberative) or immediately after decision-making (implemental). They then either had to choose between various levels of difficulty within one type of task (Experiment 1) or they had to predict their own future performance (Experiment 2). The results showed that deliberative participants preferred less difficult tasks and overestimated their probability of success less than implemental participants. In addition, deliberative participants referred more than implemental participants to their past performance when selecting levels of difficulty or predicting future performance; however, the two groups did not differ in actual performance. Taken together, the findings suggest that people are more realistic in a deliberative than in an implemental state of mind. The present studies extend prior research because for the first time they document mindset effects on peoples' estimates concerning their future performance in the achievement domain.     

Action representations activated by task‐irrelevant information: Is it really irrelevant?

Accessing action knowledge is believed to rely on the activation of action representations through the retrieval of functional, manipulative, and spatial information associated with objects. However, it remains unclear whether action representations can be activated in this way when the object information is irrelevant to the current judgment. The present study investigated this question by independently manipulating the correctness of three types of action‐related information: the functional relation between the two objects, the grip applied to the objects, and the orientation of the objects. In each of three tasks in Experiment 1, participants evaluated the correctness of only one of the three information types (function, grip or orientation). Similar results were achieved with all three tasks: “correct” judgments were facilitated when the other dimensions were correct; however, “incorrect” judgments were facilitated when the other two dimensions were both correct and also when they were both incorrect. In Experiment 2, when participants attended to an action‐irrelevant feature (object color), there was no interaction between function, grip, and orientation. These results clearly indicate that action representations can be activated by retrieval of functional, manipulative, and spatial knowledge about objects, even though this is task‐irrelevant information.     

The Limits of Attention for Visual Perception and Action in Aging

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate whether aging results in an increased attentional blink effect in older adults as compared to young adults. A rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm was employed in which participants were asked to identify two targets (dual-task condition) presented in rapid succession. These targets were separated by various intervals in a stream of stimuli. The performance for identifying the second target was normally diminished as compared to identification of a single-task target. Various combinations of tasks, such as two perceptual tasks or one perceptual and one action task, as well as different types of pointing action, such as pointing to a displaced target, pointing to a stationary target or pointing to a disappeared target, were manipulated in this study to see if aging may further impact these variables. The results of this study showed that in young adults, successful identification of the first target interfered with identifying the second target, as well as the initiation time (action planning) of pointing to the second target. However, identification of the first target did not interfere with pointing movement time and pointing accuracy, even when the target was displaced, which required online control of action. Conversely, for older adults, successful central identification not only interfered with identifying the second target and with the pointing initiation time, but also interfered with pointing movement time for a displaced target. This suggests that older adults seem to be unable to concurrently identify the first target and correct their already-initiated pointing movement compared to young adults.     

Modes of executive control in sequence learning: from stimulus-based to plan-based control

The authors argue that human sequential learning is often but not always characterized by a shift from stimulus- to plan-based action control. To diagnose this shift, they manipulated the frequency of 1st-order transitions in a repeated manual left-right sequence, assuming that performance is sensitive to frequency-induced biases under stimulus- but not plan-based control. Indeed, frequency biases tended to disappear with practice, but only for explicit learners. This tendency was facilitated by visual-verbal target stimuli, response-contingent sounds, and intentional instructions and hampered by auditory (but not visual) noise. Findings are interpreted within an event-coding model of action control, which holds that plans for sequences of discrete actions are coded phonetically, integrating order and relative timing. The model distinguishes between plan acquisition, linked to explicit knowledge, and plan execution, linked to the action control mode.     

Action planning and position sense in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder

The present study examined action planning and position sense in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Participants performed two action planning tasks, the sword task and the bar grasping task, and an active elbow matching task to examine position sense. Thirty children were included in the DCD group (aged 6–10 years) and age-matched to 90 controls. The DCD group had a MABC-2 total score ⩽5th percentile, the control group a total score ⩾25th percentile. Results from the sword-task showed that children with DCD planned less for end-state comfort. On the bar grasping task no significant differences in planning for end-state comfort between the DCD and control group were found. There was also no significant difference in the position sense error between the groups. The present study shows that children with DCD plan less for end-state comfort, but that this result is task-dependent and becomes apparent when more precision is needed at the end of the task. In that respect, the sword-task appeared to be a more sensitive task to assess action planning abilities, than the bar grasping task. The action planning deficit in children with DCD cannot be explained by an impaired position sense during active movements.     

Inhibitory Control of Lexical Selection in Adults who Stutter

PurposeBased on previous evidence that lexical selection may operate differently in adults who stutter (AWS) versus typically-fluent adults (TFA), and that atypical attentional processing may be a contributing factor, the purpose of this study was to investigate inhibitory control of lexical selection in AWS.Method12 AWS and 12 TFA completed two tasks. One was a picture naming task featuring High and Low Agreement object naming. Naming accuracy and reaction times (RT), and event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to picture onset, were recorded. Second was a flanker task featuring Congruent and Incongruent arrow arrays. Push-button accuracy and RTs, and ERPs time-locked to arrow array onset, were recorded.ResultsLow Agreement pictures were named less accurately and slower than High Agreement pictures in both Groups. The magnitude of the Agreement effect on naming RTs was larger in AWS versus TFA. Delta-plot analysis revealed that the Agreement effect was positively correlated with individual differences in inhibition in TFA but not in AWS. Moreover, Low Agreement pictures elicited negative-going ERP activity relative to High Agreement pictures in both Groups. However, the scalp topography of this effect was markedly reduced in AWS versus TFA. For the Flanker task, Congruency affected push-button accuracy and RTs, and N2 amplitudes, similarly between groups.ConclusionsResults point to a selective deficit in inhibitory control of lexical selection in AWS. Potential pathways between diminished inhibitory control of lexical selection, speech motor control and stuttering are discussed.     

The GROOP effect: groups mimic group actions

Research on perception–action links has focused on an interpersonal level, demonstrating effects of observing individual actions on performance. The present study investigated perception–action matching at an inter-group level. Pairs of participants responded to hand movements that were performed by two individuals who used one hand each or they responded to hand movements performed by an individual who used both hands. Apart from the difference in the number of observed agents, the observed hand movements were identical. If co-actors form action plans that specify the actions to be performed jointly, then participants should have a stronger tendency to mimic group actions than individual actions. Confirming this prediction, the results showed larger mimicry effects when groups responded to group actions than when groups responded to otherwise identical individual actions. This suggests that representations of joint tasks modulate automatic perception–action links and facilitate mimicry at an inter-group level.     

How Working With a Helpful Versus Less Helpful Confederate Influences Joint-Action in a Pegboard Task

Actors change their movement strategies to complement a coactor's movements when performing cooperative tasks. To further investigate this topic, the authors designed a pegboard task whereby a participant-confederate pair worked together to move a peg from one side of the board to the other. The authors examined how the experience of working with a helpful confederate versus less helpful confederate influenced the participant's movement behavior. Results provide evidence that participants change their movement behaviors in response to the actions of the confederate. Here the human capacity to act in such a manner exemplifies an individual's ability to utilize his or her own action system to understand others and interact to complete joint action tasks. Individuals appear to adapt their behavior to their experiences, and thus may be helpful in some contexts and less helpful in others.     

Explaining Normative Versus Nonnormative Action: The Role of Implicit Theories

The current research investigates what motivates people to engage in normative versus nonnormative action. Prior research has shown that different emotions lead to different types of action. We argue that these differing emotions are determined by a more basic characteristic, namely, implicit theories about whether groups and the world in general can change. We hypothesized that incremental theories (beliefs that groups/the world can change) would predict normative action, and entity theories (beliefs that groups/the world cannot change) as well as group identification would predict nonnormative action. We conducted a pilot in the context of protests against a government plan to relocate Bedouin villages in Israel and a main study during the Israeli social protests of the middle class. Results revealed three distinct pathways to collective action. First, incremental theories about the world predicted hope, which predicted normative action. Second, incremental theories about groups and group identification predicted anger, which also predicted normative collective action. Lastly, entity theories about groups predicted nonnormative collective action through hatred, but only for participants who were highly identified with the group. In sum, people who believed in the possibility of change supported normative action, whereas those who believed change was not possible supported nonnormative action.     

Action, verbal response and spatial reasoning

Studies have shown that perception of distance, orientation and size can be dissociated from action tasks. The action system seems to possess more veridical, unbiased information than the perceptual/verbal system. The current study examines the nature of the distinction between action and verbal responses in a spatial reasoning task. Participants imagined themselves facing different orientations and either pointed to where other objects would be, or verbally reported their egocentric directions (e.g., "50 degrees to my left"). When using pointing responses, RT and error increased as a function of the angular disparity between the imagined heading and their actual heading. However, when using verbal responses, performance was not affected by angular disparity, suggesting that participants knew the direction of the targets from the imagined perspective but could not point to them directly. The verbal and action systems have fundamentally different information or processes rather than quantitatively different ones.     

Contributions of expected sensory and affective action effects to action selection and performance: Evidence from forced- and free-choice tasks

Whereas ideomotor approaches to action control emphasize the importance of sensory action effects for action selection, motivational approaches emphasize the role of affective action effects. We used a game-like experimental setup to directly compare the roles of sensory and affective action effects in selecting and performing reaching actions in forced- and free-choice tasks. The two kinds of action effects did not interact. Action selection and execution in the forced-choice task were strongly impacted by the spatial compatibility between actions and the expected sensory action effects, whereas the free-choice task was hardly affected. In contrast, action execution, but not selection, in both tasks was strongly impacted by the spatial compatibility between actions and highly valued action effects. This pattern suggests that sensory and affective action effects serve different purposes: The former seem to dominate rule-based action selection, whereas the latter might serve to reduce any remaining action uncertainty.     

End-state comfort planning after explicit goal instructions in children with and without probable developmental coordination disorder

BackgroundWhen completing grip-selection tasks, healthy adults generally plan for the most comfortable end-posture which is termed the end-state comfort (ESC) effect. Children with and without developmental coordination disorder (DCD) are less likely to plan for ESC which begs the question as to whether they are not able to perform this type of planning or whether they prioritize other aspects of the task.Aims(1) Examine if children with and without probable DCD (pDCD) are able to plan for ESC if they are explicitly instructed to and (2) if this transfers to another similar task. (3) Examine if children with and without pDCD perceive the level of comfort of the grips that they use differently and if this relates to ESC planning.MethodsTwelve children with and 12 children without probable DCD (pDCD) (aged 5–9 years) received a 10-min training session in which children were explicitly instructed to end their movement in ESC, after which they formulated their own plan to reach this goal. The study consisted of a pre-post-test design in which changes in the proportion of ESC were analyzed on the task that was trained as well as on an untrained transfer-task. Furthermore, the perceived level of comfort was examined.ResultsBoth groups of children showed a higher proportion of ESC on the post-test compared with the pre-test, on the task that was trained as well as on the transfer-task. There were no group differences regarding the perceived level of comfort of the different grip postures.ConclusionThe majority of the children with and without pDCD seems to be able to adjust their planning strategy and prioritize ESC if they are explicitly instructed to.     

When motion improves working memory

ABSTRACT

In the present study, we used a complex span task to explore how memory traces resulting from Self-Performed Task (SPT) and Verbal Task (VT) are maintained in working memory. Participants memorised series of five sentences describing an action either through SPT or VT. Between pairs of sentences, participants performed a concurrent task that varied according to its nature and its cognitive load. The concurrent task was either a verbal task, a low cognitive load motor task or a high cognitive load motor task. A control condition served as a baseline. First, we observed that performance in SPT and VT did not decrease with verbal or motor suppression, but was lower with an increase of the cognitive load. This suggests that memory traces are maintained through attentional refreshing whatever the encoding (SPT or VT). Second, while the enactment effect was replicated in the control condition, it tended to vanish with a verbal concurrent task; moreover, it was reversed with motor concurrent tasks. Surprisingly, the latter effect resulted from an increase of VT memory performance when participants repeated the same gesture between sentences. Finally, our results provide additional evidence that the enactment effect does not rely on attention.     

Inferior parietal lobule involved in representation of “what” in a delayed-action Libet task

Intentional motor action is typically characterized by the decision about the timing, and the selection of the action variant, known as the “what” component. We compared free action selection with instructed action, where the movement type was externally cued, in order to investigate the action selection and action representation in a Libet’s task. Temporal and spatial locus of these processes was examined using the combination of high-density electroencephalography, topographic analysis of variance, and source reconstruction. Instructed action, engaging representation of the response movement, was associated with distinct negativity at the parietal and centro-parietal channels starting around 750 ms before the movement, which has a source particularly in the bilateral inferior parietal lobule. This suggests that in delayed-action tasks, the process of action representation in the inferior parietal lobule may play an important part in the larger parieto-frontal activity responsible for movement selection.     

Cognitive control of action naming in adults who stutter

PurposeBased on previous evidence that cognitive control of lexical selection in object (noun) naming operates differently in adults who stutter (AWS) versus typically-fluent adults (TFA), the aim was to investigate cognitive control of lexical selection in action (verb) naming in AWS.Method12 AWS and 12 TFA named line drawings depicting actions using verbs. Half of the pictures had high-agreement action names and the other half low-agreement action names. Naming accuracy and reaction times (RT), and event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to picture onset, were compared between groups.ResultsNaming RTs were slower for low- versus high-agreement trials, and the magnitude of this effect was larger in AWS versus TFA. Delta-plot analysis of naming RTs revealed that individual differences in selective inhibition were associated with the agreement effect on naming RTs in AWS but not TFA. Action naming elicited frontal-central N2 activity in both agreement conditions in TFA but not AWS. Additionally, a later, posterior P3b component was affected by agreement in TFA only. In AWS, low-agreement action naming elicited frontal P3a activation.ConclusionsResults suggest that cognitive control of action name selection was qualitatively different between groups. In TFA, cognitive control of lexical selection in action naming involved nonselective inhibition, as well as more efficient working memory updating on high- versus low-agreement trials. In AWS, cognitive control of low-agreement action naming involved increased focal attention. Individual differences in selective inhibition may have moderated cognitive control of action naming in AWS.