Brain structures participating in mental simulation of motor behavior: a neuropsychological interpretation

This paper reviews findings from cognitive and sport psychology, as well as from neurophysiology, concerning mental simulation of movement. A neuropsychological hypothesis is advanced to explain why mental practice can improve motor skill learning. Mental practice activates certain brain structures selectively as shown by measurements of regional cerebral blood flow. It appears likely that this activation improves the subsequent control of execution of movements. It is pointed out that the study of simulation of movements may not only be of value for sport training but also have importance for the rehabilitation of patients with motor disturbances following lesions of the central nervous system.     

Evidence for a role of action in colour perception

Action is not usually considered to play a role in colour perception. However, sensorimotor theories of perception (eg O'Regan and No?, 2001 Behavior and Brain Science 24 939-1011) suggest that, on the contrary, the transformations created by action in the sensory input are a necessary condition for all perception. In the case of colour vision, eye movements may explain how a retina with significant irregularities in resolution and cone arrangement (Roorda and Williams, 1999 Nature 397 520-522) could permit the perception of a richly coloured world (Clark and O'Regan, 2000 15th International Conference on Pattern Recognition volume 2: Pattern Recognition and Neural Networks pp 503-506; Skaff et al, 2002 16th International Conference on Pattern Recognition volume 2, pp 681-684). We provide evidence that perception of colour is modified when an artificial coupling is introduced linking eye movements and colour changes. After 40 min of wearing left-field-blue/right-field-yellow spectacles, observers' colour vision adapts so that, after removing the spectacles, white patches seem to become bluer when the eyes move rightwards and yellower when the eyes move leftwards. This induced dependence of colour perception on the direction of eye saccade is shown to be related to the amount of eye movements during exposure. This result, which cannot be explained either by retinal adaptation, or by a conditioned association between colour and side, constitutes first clear evidence for a role of eye movements in perceived colour and argues for the involvement in colour perception of neural mechanisms continuously tuned to sensorimotor contingencies.     

The influence of action perception on object recognition: a developmental study

Two experiments explored the existence and the development of relations between action representations and object representations. A priming paradigm was used in which participants viewed an action pantomime followed by the picture of a tool, the tool being either associated or unassociated with the preceding action. Overall, we observed that the perception of an action pantomime can facilitate the recognition of a corresponding tool. Experiment 1 was based on a naming task and was conducted with 9- to 12-year-old children and a group of young adults. While substantial priming effects were obtained for all age groups, they were especially important for the youngest participants. Smaller priming effects were obtained in Experiment 2, using a categorization task and conducted on 5- to 11-year-old children and young adults, but again the results suggest that these action priming effects diminish with increasing age. Implications of these results for the organization and development of conceptual knowledge are discussed.     

The relation of perception and motor action: ideomotor compatibility and interference in divided attention

Ideomotor theory is one variation of the general position that perception and motor action are related. According to this theory, a perceptual representation of the goal of a response must be generated prior to response initiation. Ideomotor theory can be extended by assuming that generation of this representation, which usually is required prior to motor action, is not needed if the stimulus itself corresponds to the response goal, that is, if the stimulus and response are ideomotor compatible. Because processing to generate the response representation is not needed with ideomotor compatibility, it should be possible to control two responses simultaneously without mutual interference if at least one stimulus-response relation is ideomotor compatible. Although supported in previous work involving discrete responses, this prediction of perfect time-sharing was found not to hold in the experiments reported here. These experiments, unlike those showing perfect time-sharing, involved continuous responses. We propose an alternative version of ideomotor compatibility, in which perfect time-sharing can occur if an integrated stimulus is provided to match the continuous and integrated response.     

The role of video in facilitating perception and action of a novel coordination movement

Two groups (n = 10 in each) practiced a novel, bimanual coordination pattern that was demonstrated on video. One of the groups received augmented video feedback of their own responses after each trial following a demonstration. The video-feedback group showed better performance in acquisition and retention than the no-feedback group. On error-detection tests, the video-feedback group was better able to distinguish between correct and incorrect movement patterns. The authors concluded that video feedback helps to make relative phase information salient by aiding the discrimination process. Prepractice ability on a scanning task revealed that individuals who persevered with in-phase-type movements, even though the task demands dictated otherwise, had the most difficulty determining and subsequently performing the required movement. Video feedback helped them to compensate for those difficulties.     

Facilitation effect of observed motor deviants in a cooperative motor task: Evidence for direct perception of social intention in action

Spatiotemporal parameters of voluntary motor action may help optimize human social interactions. Yet it is unknown whether individuals performing a cooperative task spontaneously perceive subtly informative social cues emerging through voluntary actions. In the present study, an auditory cue was provided through headphones to an actor and a partner who faced each other. Depending on the pitch of the auditory cue, either the actor or the partner were required to grasp and move a wooden dowel under time constraints from a central to a lateral position. Before this main action, the actor performed a preparatory action under no time constraint, consisting in placing the wooden dowel on the central location when receiving either a neutral (“prêt”–ready) or an informative auditory cue relative to who will be asked to perform the main action (the actor: “moi”–me, or the partner: “lui”–him). Although the task focused on the main action, analysis of motor performances revealed that actors performed the preparatory action with longer reaction times and higher trajectories when informed that the partner would be performing the main action. In this same condition, partners executed the main actions with shorter reaction times and lower velocities, despite having received no previous informative cues. These results demonstrate that the mere observation of socially driven motor actions spontaneously influences the low-level kinematics of voluntary motor actions performed by the observer during a cooperative motor task. These findings indicate that social intention can be anticipated from the mere observation of action patterns.     

The role of religion in human values: a case study

By helping social norms to be internalized, values are indirectly sources of relationship behaviour. Likewise, cultural traditions, religion and language have different meanings that shape beliefs and influence social life. Thus, it seems important to revaluate the role of values in social life in a society which is extremely distinguishable in religious terms. An adaptation of Schwartz’s (1994a Schwartz, S. H. 1994a. “Studying human values”. In Journeys Into Cross‐Cultural Psychology, Edited by: Bouvy, A., Vijver, F., Boski, P. and Schmitz, P. 239–254. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.  [Google Scholar]) value survey was used. MANOVA analysis revealed significant differences between groups in four value types and in three higher dimensions. Overall, results indicate that a combination of Schwartz’ values with insights from individualism/collectivism can be useful in contexts like Mozambique, a nation characterized by divergent religious groups, which can lead to a collision between religious viewpoints and values. Altogether, it seems most important to investigate further the historical and social influences that shape individual and communal identities with regard to questions of religion and values.     

Authorship effects in the prediction of handwriting strokes: Evidence for action simulation during action perception

Does the action system contribute to action perception? Recent evidence suggests that actions are simulated while being observed. Given that the planning and simulating system are the same only when one observes one's own actions, it might be easier to predict the future outcomes of actions when one has carried them out oneself earlier on. In order to test this hypothesis, three experiments were conducted in which participants observed parts of earlier self- and other-produced trajectories and judged whether another stroke would follow or not. When the trajectories were produced without constraints, participants accomplished this task only for self-produced trajectories. When the trajectories were produced under narrow constraints, the predictions were equally accurate for self- and for other-generated trajectories. These results support the action simulation assumption. The more the actions that one observes resemble the way one would carry them out oneself, the more accurate the simulation.     

Challenging a flexible neuropsychological battery under Kelly/Frye: a case study

The ability of the flexible neuropsychological battery approach to withstand a challenge under California's evidentiary standard, Kelly/Frye, was tested in an actual trial. Despite repeating many criticisms offered by the literature (e.g., no malingering measures, unknown accuracy rates, ignoring statistical limitations, not using age norms), the battery was allowed in "for the weight of the evidence," rather than being excluded as unreliable.     

Observing or producing a motor action improves later perception of biological motion: Evidence for a gender effect

Two experiments are presented addressing the issue of whether observing (visual priming) or producing (motor priming) a running activity during a very short period (30 s) facilitates the perception of the direction of a point-light runner embedded in a dense dynamical mask. Experiment 1 showed that perceptual judgements improved and response time increased in the visual priming compared to the neutral priming condition (video of a moving car) in which judgements were at random. Because this effect was observed for male participants only, we performed a second experiment with the aim of evaluating the role of gender congruency in the visual priming condition. Results confirmed the facilitation effect and demonstrated that this effect was strictly dependent on the gender congruency between the perceiver and the priming information. Moreover, we found that actually producing a motor activity similar to the one presented in the video sequence improved to the same extent participants’ judgement of the direction of the point-light runner, without any gender effect. As a whole, these findings argue in favour of common representation for the perception and the production of human movement and showed that the perception of biological motion can be improved by prior motor activity either performed or observed. However, the gender-dependent effect of visual priming suggested that motor repertoire differed in males and females.     

The impact of visual illusions on perception, action planning, and motor performance

The present study extended recent research revealing that illusions can influence performance in golf putting (Witt, Linkenauger, & Proffitt Psychological Science, 23, 397–399, 2012), by exploring the potential mediating roles of attention and action planning. Glover and Dixon’s (Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 27, 560–572, 2001) planning–control model suggests that both perceptual and movement-planning processes are prone to illusion-based bias. We therefore predicted that both the perception of target size and a measure of attentional control related to movement planning in golf putting (the quiet eye) would be influenced by the illusion. Moreover, as performance could not be corrected using online control (once the ball was struck), we predicted that these biases would also influence performance. We therefore proposed a three-stage process by which illusory context biases perceptual processes, which in turn bias subsequent attentional control related to movement planning, which in turn biases motor performance. Forty novice golfers completed an Ebbinghaus illusion putting task that was designed to manipulate their perceptions of target size, while quiet eye duration and performance (mean radial error) were measured. The results indicated that the illusion was effective in facilitating differences in perceived target size, with perceptually bigger holes promoting longer quiet eye durations and more accurate putting. Follow-up mediation analyses revealed that illusion-based differences in size perception partially mediated illusion-based differences in both quiet eye duration and performance. Moreover, the relationship between illusion-based differences in quiet eye duration and performance was also significant. Future research should further test this three-stage process of bias in other far-aiming tasks in which online control cannot be used.     

Recognizing the role of perception in action at 6 months

The present research examined whether infants as young as 6 months of age would consider what objects a human agent could perceive when interpreting her actions on the objects. In two experiments, the infants took the agent's actions of repeatedly reaching for and grasping one of two possible objects as suggesting her preference for that object only when the agent could detect both objects, not when the agent's perceptual access to the second object was absent, either because a large screen hid the object from the agent ( Experiment 1 ), or because the agent sat with her back toward the object ( Experiment 2 ). These results suggest that young infants recognize the role of perception in constraining an agent's goal‐actions.     

Social cognition in simple action coordination: A case for direct perception

In this paper we sketch the outlines of an account of the kind of social cognition involved in simple action coordination that is based on direct social perception (DSP) rather than recursive mindreading. While we recognize the viability of a mindreading-based account such as e.g. Michael Tomasello’s, we present an alternative DSP account that (i) explains simple action coordination in a less cognitively demanding manner, (ii) is better able to explain flexibility and strategy-switching in coordination and crucially (iii) allows for formal modeling. This account of action coordination is based on the notion of an agent’s field of affordances. Coordination ensues, we argue, when, given a shared intention, the actions of and/or affordances for one agent shape the field of affordances for another agent. This a form of social perception since in particular perceiving affordances for another person involves seeing that person as an agent. It is a form of social perception since it involves perceiving affordances for another person and registering how another person’s actions influence one’s own perceived field of affordances.     

Perceptuomotor rules as prediction tools in (joint) action: The case of orientation perception

The human action system has a layered structure supporting a cascade of partially overlapping information processes in multiple, interlinked representational spaces. Apart from the mirror neuron system which through motor resonance mediates one's understanding of the action goals of one's partner, perceptuomotor rules like Fitts' law, the Isogony Principle, and sequencing heuristics provide further sources of prediction in (joint) action. The present study focuses on a perceptuomotor rule that describes how the orientation of framed, tilted objects is perceived and acted upon by individuals. In two experiments involving the Rod-and-Frame Illusion (RFI) participants were asked to perform delayed responses that consisted either of (1) making a perceptual judgment in a forced-choice paradigm, or (2) rotating and propelling a hand-held cylinder. Irrespective of response type, the effects of the RFI proved robust and constant. The relevance of the findings for prediction in joint-action tasks is discussed.     

The psychophysics of chasing: A case study in the perception of animacy

Psychologists have long been captivated by the perception of animacy – the fact that even simple moving shapes may appear to engage in animate, intentional, and goal-directed movements. Here we report several new types of studies of a particularly salient form of perceived animacy: chasing, in which one shape (the ‘wolf’) pursues another shape (‘the sheep’). We first demonstrate two new cues to perceived chasing – chasing subtlety (the degree to which the wolf deviates from perfectly ‘heat-seeking’ pursuit) and directionality (whether and how the shapes ‘face’ each other). We then use these cues to show how it is possible to assess the objective accuracy of such percepts, and to distinguish the immediate perception of chasing from those more subtle (but nevertheless real) types of ‘stalking’ that cannot be readily perceived. We also report several methodological advances. Previous studies of the perception of animacy have faced two major challenges: (a) it is difficult to measure perceived animacy with quantitative precision; and (b) task demands make it difficult to distinguish perception from higher-level inferences about animacy. We show how these challenges can be met, at least in our case study of perceived chasing, via tasks based on dynamic visual search (the Find-the-Chase task) and a new type of interactive display (the Don’t-Get-Caught! task).     

Disorder in sequential speech perception: a case study on pure word deafness

We described disorders of a patient which were uniquely restricted to speech perception of syllable sequences after brain damage. The results of series of experiments using syllable sequences showed "negative recency effect," in which the subject's repetition performance at the latter syllable position was remarkably poor. Experimental analyses suggested that the "negative recency effect" could be due to dual factors: the lower rate of processing of speech sounds and the memory load of holding processes of preceding syllables imposed on the succeeding phonological processing. The results also suggested that the holding processes which imposed the memory load on the succeeding auditory phonological coding processing were modality nonspecific.     

The dynamics of perception and action

How might one account for the organization in behavior without attributing it to an internal control structure? The present article develops a theoretical framework called behavioral dynamics that integrates an information-based approach to perception with a dynamical systems approach to action. For a given task, the agent and its environment are treated as a pair of dynamical systems that are coupled mechanically and informationally. Their interactions give rise to the behavioral dynamics, a vector field with attractors that correspond to stable task solutions, repellers that correspond to avoided states, and bifurcations that correspond to behavioral transitions. The framework is used to develop theories of several tasks in which a human agent interacts with the physical environment, including bouncing a ball on a racquet, balancing an object, braking a vehicle, and guiding locomotion. Stable, adaptive behavior emerges from the dynamics of the interaction between a structured environment and an agent with simple control laws, under physical and informational constraints.