The effects of approach and avoidance motor actions on the elements of creative insight

The authors propose that the nonaffective bodily feedback produced by arm flexion and extension informs individuals about the processing requirements of the situation, leading to the adoption of differential processing styles and thereby influencing creativity. Specifically, the authors predicted that arm flexion would elicit a heuristic processing strategy and bolster insight processes, whereas arm extension would elicit a systematic processing strategy and impair insight processes. To test these predictions, the authors assessed the effects of these motor actions on 3 central elements of creative insight: contextual set-breaking, restructuring, and mental search. As predicted, in 6 experiments, arm flexion, relative to arm extension, facilitated insight-related processes. In a 7th experiment, arm extension, relative to arm flexion, facilitated analytical reasoning, supporting a cognitive tuning interpretation of the findings.     

Approach and avoidance as action effects

Numerous studies use arm movements (arm flexion and extension) to investigate the interaction between emotional stimuli and approach/avoidance behaviour. In many experiments, however, these arm movements are ambiguous. Arm flexion can be interpreted either as pulling (approach) or as withdrawing (avoidance). On the contrary, arm extension can be interpreted as reaching (approach) or as pushing (avoidance). This ambiguity can be resolved by regarding approach and avoidance as flexible action plans that are represented in terms of their effects. Approach actions reduce the distance between a stimulus and the self, whereas avoidance actions increase that distance. In this view, action effects are an integral part of the representation of an action. As a result, a neutral action can become an approach or avoidance reaction if it repeatedly results in decreasing or increasing the distance to a valenced stimulus. This hypothesis was tested in the current study. Participants responded to positive and negative words using key-presses. These “neutral” responses (not involving arm flexion or extension) were consistently followed by a stimulus movement toward or away from the participant. Responses to emotional words were faster when the response's effect was congruent with stimulus valence, suggesting that approach/avoidance actions are indeed defined in terms of their outcomes.     

Preprogramming vs. on-line control in simple movement sequences

In the present experiment the acceleration traces produced during a repetitive arm extension/flexion movement were measured in addition to the RT required to initiate such a movement. The speed at which this task was completed as well as the number of extension/flexion segments were varied to allow for either preprogramming or on-line control. Evidence from the acceleration traces and the RT data suggested that the movements completed as quickly as possible were preprogrammed; whereas, those completed more slowly were controlled on-line. Furthermore, the topologies of the power spectral density functions from the acceleration traces of each type of movement displayed characteristics typical of these forms of control.     

Embodiment effects in memory for facial identity and facial expression

Research suggests that states of the body, such as postures, facial expressions, and arm movements, play central roles in social information processing. This study investigated the effects of approach/avoidance movements on memory for facial information. Faces displaying a happy or a sad expression were presented and participants were induced to perform either an approach (arm flexion) or an avoidance (arm extension) movement. States of awareness associated with memory for facial identity and memory for facial expression were then assessed with the Remember/Know/Guess paradigm. The results showed that performing avoidance movements increased Know responses for the identity, and Know/Guess responses for the expression, of valence-compatible stimuli (i.e., sad faces as compared to happy faces), whereas this was not the case for approach movements. Based on these findings, it is suggested that approach/avoidance motor actions influence memory encoding by increasing the ease of processing for valence-compatible information.     

The influence of approach–avoidance motivational orientation on conflict adaptation

To deal effectively with a continuously changing environment, our cognitive system adaptively regulates resource allocation. Earlier findings showed that an avoidance orientation (induced by arm extension), relative to an approach orientation (induced by arm flexion), enhanced sustained cognitive control. In avoidance conditions, performance on a cognitive control task was enhanced, as indicated by a reduced congruency effect, relative to approach conditions. Extending these findings, in the present behavioral studies we investigated dynamic adaptations in cognitive control—that is, conflict adaptation. We proposed that an avoidance state recruits more resources in response to conflicting signals, and thereby increases conflict adaptation. Conversely, in an approach state, conflict processing diminishes, which consequently weakens conflict adaptation. As predicted, approach versus avoidance arm movements affected both behavioral congruency effects and conflict adaptation: As compared to approach, avoidance movements elicited reduced congruency effects and increased conflict adaptation. These results are discussed in line with a possible underlying neuropsychological model.     

The adaptability of self-action perception and movement control when the limb is passively versus actively moved

Research suggests that perceptual experience of our movements adapts together with movement control when we are the agents of our actions. Is this agency critical for perceptual and motor adaptation? We had participants view cursor feedback during elbow extension–flexion movements when they (1) actively moved their arm, or (2) had their arm passively moved. We probed adaptation of movement perception by having participants report the reversal point of their unseen movement. We probed adaptation of movement control by having them aim to a target. Perception and control of active movement were influenced by both types of exposure, although adaptation was stronger following active exposure. Furthermore, both types of exposure led to a change in the perception of passive movements. Our findings support the notion that perception and control adapt together, and they suggest that some adaptation is due to recalibrated proprioception that arises independently of active engagement with the environment.     

The influence of unilateral and bilateral arm flexion versus extension on judgments: an exploratory case of motor congruence

Two experiments were conducted to examine how activation of the motivational systems of approach and withdrawal (arm flexion vs. extension) through 2 different bodily mechanisms (right arm vs. left arm) influenced participants' evaluations of neutral Chinese ideographs. Study 1 found that unilateral flexion on the right side and unilateral extension on the left side led to more positive evaluations than unilateral flexion on the left side and unilateral extension on the right side. Using bilateral movements, Study 2 found that simultaneous performance of a right-arm flexion and a left-arm extension led to more positive evaluations than a left-arm flexion and a right-arm extension. A motor congruence hypothesis was offered to account for these findings.     

Upper limb movement analysis during gait in multiple sclerosis patients

PurposeGait disorders in multiple sclerosis (MS) are well studied; however, no previous study has described upper limb movements during gait. However, upper limb movements have an important role during locomotion and can be altered in MS patients due to direct MS lesions or mechanisms of compensation. The aim of this study was to describe the arm movements during gait in a population of MS patients with low disability compared with a healthy control group.MethodsIn this observational study we analyzed the arm movements during gait in 52 outpatients (mean age: 39.7 ± 9.6 years, female: 40%) with relapsing-remitting MS with low disability (mean EDSS: 2 ± 1) and 25 healthy age-matched controls using a 3-dimension gait analysis.ResultsMS patients walked slower, with increased mean elbow flexion and decreased amplitude of elbow flexion (ROM) compared to the control group, whereas shoulder and hand movements were similar to controls. These differences were not explained by age or disability.ConclusionUpper limb alterations in movement during gait in MS patients with low disability can be characterized by an increase in mean elbow flexion and a decrease in amplitude (ROM) for elbow flexion/extension. This upper limb movement pattern should be considered as a new component of gait disorders in MS and may reflect subtle motor deficits or the use of compensatory mechanisms.     

Control of Rapid Arm Movements When Target Position Is Altered During Saccadic Suppression

This experiment examined whether rapid arm movements can be corrected in response to a change in target position that occurs just prior to movement onset, during saccadic suppression of displacement. Because the threshold of retinal input reaches its highest magnitude at that time, displacement of the visual target of a saccade is not perceived. Subjects (N = 6) were instructed to perform very rapid arm movements toward visual targets located 16, 20, and 24 degrees from midline (on average, movement time was 208 ms). On some trials the 20 degrees target was displaced 4 degrees either to the right or to the left during saccadic suppression. For double-step trials, arm movements did not deviate from their original trajectory. Movement endpoints and movement structure (i.e., velocity-and acceleration-time profiles) were similar whether or not target displacements occurred, showing the failure of proprioceptive signals or internal feedback loops to correct the arm trajectory. Following this movement, terminal spatially oriented movements corrected the direction of the initial movement (as compared with the single-step control trials) when the target eccentricity decreased by 4 degrees. Subjects were unaware of these spatial corrections. Therefore, spatial corrections of hand position were driven by the goal level of the task, which was updated by oculomotor corrective responses when a target shift occurred.     

The impact of perceptual, cognitive and motor factors on bimanual coordination

Bimanual coordination is governed by constraints that permit congruent movements to be performed more easily than incongruent movements. Theories concerning the origin of these constraints range from low level motor-muscle explanations to high level perceptual–cognitive ones. To elucidate the processes underlying coordinative constraints, we asked subjects to use a pair of left–right joysticks to acquire corresponding pairs of congruent and incongruent targets presented on a video monitor under task conditions designed to systematically modulate the impact of several perceptual–cognitive processes commonly required for bimanual task performance. These processes included decoding symbolic cues, detecting goal targets, conceptualizing movements in terms of goal target configuration, planning movement trajectories, producing saccades and perceiving visual feedback. Results demonstrate that constraints arise from target detection and trajectory planning processes that can occur prior to movement initiation as well as from inherent muscle properties that emerge during movement execution, and that the manifestation of these constraints can be significantly altered by the ability to visually monitor movement progress.     

Discrimination of amount of spinal flexion for movements made with and without vision after lumbar disc replacement

Discrimination of differences between small lumbar flexion movements made when standing may differ depending on whether vision is available. Dependence on general vision during trunk movements may be increased following surgery, in which an intervertebral disc is replaced with a prosthetic disc. This study investigated whether the availability of vision changed discrimination of small differences in lumbar forward flexion movement when standing for patients with lumbar disc replacement and healthy peers. 20 volunteers without a history of back pain and 20 with disc replacement undertook a 100-trial sequence of forward flexion movements to a set of physical stops, making an absolute judgement as to the position after each movement. General (nontarget) vision during the movement was available or removed randomly trial by trial. Availability of vision did not affect discrimination of flexion movements of the lumbar spine either in normal healthy individuals or those with disc replacement.     

An empirical note on attaining a spatial target after distorting the initial conditions of movement via muscle vibration

Can one's limb be accurately positioned to a spatial location without a veridical estimate of the initial conditions of movement? The experiment reported here examined this question by distorting perception of a limb's starting position via muscle vibration. Subjects executed rapid flexion movements under no-vibration, contralateral arm vibration, and ipsilateral arm vibration conditions. Vibration was applied to the biceps for 10 sec prior to the start of a reproduction movement. The results showed that vibration on the ipsilateral arm caused a significant increase in reproduction error, relative to the no-vibration and contralateral-vibration conditions. This finding provides additional evidence that accurate knowledge about the initial conditions of movement is a necessary component in positioning a limb.     

Control of Three- and Four-Joint Arm Movement: Strategies for a Manipulator With Redundant Degrees of Freedom

Control of arm movements when the number of joints exceeds the degrees of freedom necessary for the task requires a strategy for selecting specific arm configurations out of an infinite number of possibilities. This report reviews strategies used by human subjects to control the shoulder, elbow, and wrist (three degrees of freedom) while moving a pointer to positions in a horizontal plane (two degrees of freedom). Analysis of final arm configurations assumed when the pointer was at the target showed the following: (a) Final arm configurations were virtually independent of the configuration at the start of the pointing movement, (b) subjects avoided configurations subjectively felt to be uncomfortable (e.g., those with extreme flexion or extension of the wrist), and (c) the results could be simulated by assigning hypothetical cost functions to each joint and selecting the arm configuration that minimized the sum of the costs. The fitted cost functions qualitatively agreed with psychophysically determined comfort; they appeared to depend on joint angle and on muscular effort. Simple neural networks can learn implicit representations of these cost functions and use them to specify final arm configurations. The minimum cost principle can be extended to movements that use the fingers as a fourth movable segment. For this condition, however, experiments showed that final configurations of the arm depended upon initial configurations. Analysis of movement trajectories for arms with three degrees of freedom led to a control model in which the minimum cost principle is augmented by a mechanism that distributes required joint movements economically among the three joints and a mechanism that implements a degree of mass-spring control.     

Optimal control in the critical phase of movement: A functional approach to motor planning processes

Grasping movements are often planned in a way that they end in a position where joints are in an anatomically medial position. This behaviour is termed the “end-state comfort” (ESC) effect (Rosenbaum et al., 1990). We suggest that the anatomically medial position is favoured to control the most difficult part of the movement. In most experiments investigating ESC, objects have to be placed onto a target location, and the highest precision demand occurs at the end of the movement. Thus, ESC is confounded with movement difficulty. In this study, we dissociate movement difficulty and ESC. In our experiments, participants had to execute a task where the critical part of the movement was either at the end or at the beginning of the movement. Participants' grasping behaviour confirmed the hypothesis that movement planning is constrained by a goal for optimal control during the part of the movement that demands the highest precision, rather than by a goal to end in a comfortable state (Rosenbaum, Chapman, Weigelt, Weiss, & van der Wel, 2012). We identified recall and movement plan generating processes of motor planning (Cohen & Rosenbaum, 2004), that ensure the optimal control in the critical part of movement. Our results indicate that recall processes depend on motor experience which is acquired in different time scales. We suggest that motor planning processes are triggered only if the costs for executing movements controlled by recall processes exceed the costs for generating a motor plan.     

An Empirical Note on Attaining a Spatial Target after Distorting the Initial Conditions of Movement via Muscle Vibration

Can one’s limb be accurately positioned to a spatial location without a veridical estimate of the initial conditions of movement? The experiment reported here examined this question by distorting perception of a limb’s starting position via muscle vibration. Subjects executed rapid flexion movements under no-vibration, contralateral arm vibration, and ipsilateral arm vibration conditions. Vibration was applied to the biceps for 10 sec prior to the start of a reproduction movement. The results showed that vibration on the ipsilateral arm caused a significant increase in reproduction error, relative to the no-vibration and contralateral-vibration conditions. This finding provides additional evidence that accurate knowledge about the initial conditions of movement is a necessary component in positioning a limb.     

The Influence of Approach and Avoidance Motor Actions on Creative Cognition

This study tested whether internal nonaffective processing cues independently influence two major varieties of creative cognition: insight problem solving and creative generation. In Experiments 1 and 2, bodily cues associated with positive or negative hedonic states were manipulated by means of arm flexor or extensor contraction, respectively, and the effects of these internal cues on creative insight and generation were observed. In line with our cognitive tuning approach, it was predicted that the “riskier,” more explorative processing style elicited by arm flexion, relative to the more risk-averse, perseverant processing style elicited by arm extension, would facilitate performance on both tasks. These predictions were strongly supported. In addition, Experiments 3 and 4 provided the first direct evidence that the effects of these internal processing cues on creativity are mediated by a memory search-based mechanism. Reported effects were independent of mood, task enjoyment, and the effortfulness of the motor actions.     

Anchoring in a novel bimanual coordination pattern

Anchoring in cyclical movements has been defined as regions of reduced spatial or temporal variability [Beek, P. J. (1989). Juggling dynamics. PhD thesis. Amsterdam: Free University Press] that are typically found at movement reversal points. For in-phase and anti-phase movements, synchronizing reversal points with a metronome pulse has resulted in decreased anchor point variability and increased pattern stability [Byblow, W. D., Carson, R. G., & Goodman, D. (1994). Expressions of asymmetries and anchoring in bimanual coordination. Human Movement Science, 13, 3-28; Fink, P. W., Foo, P., Jirsa, V. K., & Kelso, J. A. S. (2000). Local and global stabilization of coordination by sensory information. Experimental Brain Research, 134, 9-20]. The present experiment examined anchoring during acquisition, retention, and transfer of a 90 degrees phase-offset continuous bimanual coordination pattern (whereby the right limb lags the left limb by one quarter cycle), involving horizontal flexion about the elbow. Three metronome synchronization strategies were imposed: participants either synchronized maximal flexion of the right arm (i.e., single metronome), both flexion and extension of the right arm (i.e., double metronome within-limb), or flexion of each arm (i.e., double metronome between-limb) to an auditory metronome. In contrast to simpler in-phase and anti-phase movements, synchronization of additional reversal points to the metronome did not reduce reversal point variability or increase pattern stability. Furthermore, practicing under different metronome synchronization strategies did not appear to have a significant effect on the rate of acquisition of the pattern.     

Arm position influences the activation patterns of trunk muscles during trunk range-of-motion movements

To understand the activation patterns of the trunk musculature, it is also important to consider the implications of adjacent structures such as the upper limbs, and the muscles that act to move the arms. This study investigated the effects of arm positions on the activation patterns and co-activation of the trunk musculature and muscles that move the arm during trunk range-of-motion movements (maximum trunk axial twist, flexion, and lateral bend). Fifteen males and fifteen females, asymptomatic for low back pain, performed maximum trunk range-of-motion movements, with three arm positions for axial twist (loose, crossed, abducted) and two positions for flexion and lateral bend (loose, crossed). Electromyographical data were collected for eight muscles bilaterally, and activation signals were cross-correlated between trunk muscles and the muscles that move the arms (upper trapezius, latissimus dorsi). Results revealed consistently greater muscle co-activation (higher cross-correlation coefficients) between the trunk muscles and upper trapezius for the abducted arm position during maximum trunk axial twist, while results for the latissimus dorsi-trunk pairings were more dependent on the specific trunk muscles (either abdominal or back) and latissimus dorsi muscle (either right or left side), as well as the range-of-motion movement. The findings of this study contribute to the understanding of interactions between the upper limbs and trunk, and highlight the influence of arm positions on the trunk musculature. In addition, the comparison of the present results to those of individuals with back or shoulder conditions may ultimately aid in elucidating underlying mechanisms or contributing factors to those conditions.     

Interactions between goal-directed eye and arm movements: arguments for an interdependent motor control

The accuracy of movements of the arm directed toward a point in space was investigated in healthy human subjects. To study the influence of the eye movement itself, on the guidance of the arm in the absence of any visual context, subjects performed the goal-directed arm movements without visual feedback about the arm displacement and the target position. The subjects were asked either to keep their eyes centered or oriented toward a previously flashed target. The analysis of the distribution of the errors in arm final position in the two conditions suggests that the eye movement influences the final position adopted by the arm. It is postulated that an interaction exists between the eye and arm systems during the motor program elaboration phase.     

Moving arms: the effects of sensorimotor information on the problem-solving process

Embodied cognition postulates a bi-directional link between the human body and its cognitive functions. Whether this holds for higher cognitive functions such as problem solving is unknown. We predicted that arm movement manipulations performed by the participants could affect the problem-solving solutions. We tested this prediction in quantitative reasoning tasks that allowed two solutions to each problem (addition or subtraction). In two studies with healthy adults (N?=?53 and N?=?50), we found an effect of problem-congruent movements on problem solutions. Consistent with embodied cognition, sensorimotor information gained via right or left arm movements affects the solution in different types of problem-solving tasks.