Talking about actions

This article was written as an abstract of a paper or perhaps book which has yet to be written; this explains the sketchiness. The author is grateful that Professor Wójcicki has seen fit to accept it for inclusion here.     

Programming tool-use actions

When humans plan to execute a tool-use action, they can only specify the bodily movement parameters by taking into account the external target or goal of the tool-use action and the target-movement mapping implemented by the tool. In this study, the authors used the movement precuing method to investigate how people prepare for actions made with tools. More specifically, they asked whether people would be able to specify the spatial target and the target-movement mapping of the tool-use action independently of each other, and to what degree they would be able to prepare these components in advance. In 3 experiments, they precued either the target or the target-movement mapping of tool-use actions involving either a compatible or an incompatible target-movement mapping. Results indicate that participants benefit from partial advance information about the target-movement mapping, whereas no significant effects were found for precuing the spatial target of the action. These results occurred regardless of whether the target-movement mapping was compatible or incompatible and provide evidence for the notion that the target-movement mapping of a tool-use action is part of its cognitive representation.     

Prototypical actions with objects are more easily imagined than atypical actions

Tool use is an important facet of everyday life, though sometimes it is necessary to use tools in ways that do not fit within their typical functions. Here we asked participants to imagine characters using objects based on instructions that fit the prototypical actions for the object or were atypical in a novel object-action imagery task. Atypical action instructions either described sensible, substitute uses of the object, or actions that were bizarre but possible. Participants were better able to imagine the prototypical than atypical actions, but no effect of bizarreness was found. We additionally assessed inter-individual differences in movement imagery ability using two objective tests. Performance in the object-action imagery task correlated with the movement imagery tests, providing a link between motor simulations and mental imagery ability.     

Emotionally guiding our actions

If emotions have a rational role in action, then one challenge for accounting for how we can act rationally when acting emotionally is to show how we can guide our actions by our emotional considerations, seen as reasons. In this paper, I put forward a novel proposal for how this can be so. Drawing on the interconnection between emotions, cares and caring, I argue that, as the emotional agent is a caring agent, she can be aware of the emotional consideration as a pro tanto reason favouring an action choice and, even, as the reason for which she should act.     

Children perseverate to a human's actions but not to a robot's actions

Previous research has shown that young children commit perseverative errors from their observation of another person's actions. The present study examined how social observation would lead children to perseverative tendencies, using a robot. In Experiment 1, preschoolers watched either a human model or a robot sorting cards according to one dimension (e.g. shape), after which they were asked to sort according to a different dimension (e.g. colour). The results showed that children's behaviours in the task were significantly influenced by the human model's actions but not by the robot's actions. Experiment 2 excluded the possibility that children's behaviours were not affected by the robot's actions because they did not observe its actions. We concluded that children's perseverative errors from social observation resulted, in part, from their socio-cognitive ability.     

Indirect interception actions by blind and visually impaired perceivers: Echolocation for interceptive actions

Vernat, J.-P. & Gordon, M. S. (2010). Indirect interception actions by blind and visually impaired perceivers: Echolocation for interceptive actions. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 75–83.
This research examined the acoustic information used to support interceptive actions by the blind. Congenitally blind and severely visually impaired participants (all wearing an opaque, black eye-mask) were asked to listen to a target ball rolling down a track. In response, participants rolled their own ball along a perpendicular path to intercept the target. To better understand what information was used the echoic conditions and rolling dynamics of the target were varied across test sessions. In addition the rolling speed of the target and the distance of the participant from the target were varied across trials. Results demonstrated that participants tended to perform most accurately at moderate speeds and distances, overestimating the target's arrival at the fastest speed, and underestimating it at the slowest speed. However, changes to the target's dynamics, that is, the amount of deceleration it underwent on approach, did not strongly influence performance. Echoic conditions were found to affect performance, as participants were slightly more accurate in conditions with faster, higher-intensity echoes. Based on these results blind individuals in this research seemed to be using spatial and temporal cues to coordinate their interceptive actions.