To err is human: How regulatory focus and action orientation predict performance following errors

In the current study, we hypothesize that post-error performance is influenced by individual differences in action orientation and situationally induced regulatory focus. Two experiments employing a time-pressured flanker-like task, measured participants’ dispositional action orientation and manipulated regulatory focus. As expected, accuracy of the responses following errors was reduced for all participants except for action-oriented participants in a promotion focus. The latter participants are assumed to down-regulate error-related negative affect, thereby saving resources for subsequent performance. A promotion focus is assumed to facilitate the optimal use of these resources.     

Conceptual and physical object qualities contribute differently to motor affordances

Priming studies have demonstrated that an object’s intrinsic and extrinsic qualities (size, orientation) influence subsequent motor behavior thus suggesting that these object qualities ‘afford’ actions that are congruent with the prime. We present four experiments that aim to evaluate the relative effect of conceptual and physical object qualities on action priming. In Experiment 1 equally graspable known and unknown tools are presented as primes. In Experiment 2 the primes depict high versus low graspable unfamiliar tools, and in Experiments 3 and 4 we present simple graspable shapes versus high graspable unfamiliar or familiar tools respectively. In all experiments the (unrelated) task consists of a timed motor response to the direction of a centrally placed arrow that is superimposed on the prime. Whereas tool familiarity reveals no significant difference on reaction time (Exp 1), responses to high graspable unfamiliar tools (Exp 2) and simple graspable shapes (Exps 3 and 4) are significantly faster. We conclude that motor affordances are most readily determined by object qualities that depend on the object’s physical appearance provided by visual information. Conceptual information about the stimuli, such as semantic category or stored knowledge about its function and associated movements, does not appear to produce detectable effects of action priming in this paradigm.     

Moving hands, moving entities

In this study we investigated with a priming paradigm whether uni and bimanual actions presented as primes differently affected language processing. Animals’ (self-moving entities) and plants’ (not self-moving entities) names were used as targets. As prime we used grasping hands, presented both as static images and videos. The results showed an interference effect with unimanual action primes (both static and moving) with plants’ names. No modulation of responses for animals’ names was found. We argue that in the present task plants elicit information on unimanual grasping actions they support, while the lack of effect for animals could be due to them being better characterized as active agents.     

Studying action representation in children via motor imagery

The use of motor imagery is a widely used experimental paradigm for the study of cognitive aspects of action planning and control in adults. Furthermore, there are indications that motor imagery provides a window into the process of action representation. These notions complement internal model theory suggesting that such representations allow predictions (estimates) about the mapping of the self to parameters of the external world; processes that enable successful planning and execution of action. The ability to mentally represent action is important to the development of motor control. This paper presents a critical review of motor imagery research conducted with children (typically developing and special populations) with focus on its merits and possible shortcomings in studying action representation. Included in the review are age-related findings, possible brain structures involved, experimental paradigms, and recommendations for future work. The merits of this review are associated with the apparent increasing attraction for using and studying motor imagery to understand the developmental aspects of action processing in children.     

Feelings of control: Contingency determines experience of action

The experience of causation is a pervasive product of the human mind. Moreover, the experience of causing an event alters subjective time: actions are perceived as temporally shifted towards their effects [Haggard, P., Clark, S., & Kalogeras, J. (2002). Voluntary action and conscious awareness. Nature Neuroscience, 5(4), 382-385]. This temporal shift depends partly on advance prediction of the effects of action, and partly on inferential “postdictive” explanations of sensory effects of action. We investigated whether a single factor of statistical contingency could explain both these aspects of causal experience. We studied the time at which people perceived a simple manual action to occur, when statistical contingency indicated a causal relation between action and effect, and when no such relation was indicated. Both predictive and inferential “postdictive” shifts in the time of action depended on strong contingency between action and effect. The experience of agency involves a process of causal learning based on statistical contingency.     

Short-term action intentions overrule long-term semantic knowledge

In the present study, we investigated whether the preparation of an unusual action with an object (e.g. bringing a cup towards the eye) could selectively overrule long-term semantic representations. In the first experiment it was found that unusual action intentions activated short-term semantic goal representations, rather than long-term conceptual associations. In a second experiment the reversal of long-term priming effects was replicated, while reducing the need for internal verbalization as a possible strategy to accomplish the task. Priming effects in the first two experiments were found to involve the selection of object knowledge at a semantic level, rather than reflecting a general effect of action preparation on word processing (Experiment 3). Finally, in a fourth experiment short-term priming effects were shown to extend beyond a lexical level by showing faster responses to pictures representing the short-term action goal. Together, the present findings extend the ‘selection-for-action’ principle previously used in visual attention to a semantic level, by showing that semantic information is selectively activated in line with the short-term goal of the actor.     

On the signals underlying conscious awareness of action

To investigate whether conscious judgments of movement onset are based solely on pre-movement signals (i.e., premotor or efference copy signals) or whether sensory feedback (i.e., reafferent) signals also play a role, participants judged the onset of finger and toe movements that were either active (i.e., self initiated) or passive (i.e., initiated by the experimenter). Conscious judgments were made by reporting the position of a rotating clock hand presented on a computer screen and were then compared to the actual measured time of movement onset. In line with previous studies, judgment errors were found to be anticipatory for both finger and toe movements. There was a significant difference between judgment errors for active and passive movements, with judgments of active movements being more anticipatory than judgments of passive movements. This is consistent with a pre-movement (from here on referred to as an “efferent”) account of action awareness because premotor and efference copy signals are only present in active movements, whereas the main source of movement information in passive movements is sensory feedback which is subject to time delays of conduction (and hence predicts later judgment times for passive movements). However, judgments of active toe movement onset time were less anticipatory than judgments of active finger movement onset time. This pattern of results is not consistent with a pure efferent account of conscious awareness of action onset - as this account predicts more anticipatory judgments for toe movements compared to finger movements. Instead, the data support the idea that conscious judgments of movement onset are based on efferent (i.e., premotor, efference copy) and reafferent (i.e., feedback from the movement) components.     

La relance du processus conventionnel relatif au clonage humain – Réflexions de lege ferenda

As regards human cloning, should the convention process – which failed at UN level following several years of procrastination – be relaunched? A United Nations University report (September 2007) and, subsequently, certain reflections on behalf of the International Bioethics Committee, point to the fact that an international convention, banning human reproductive cloning, could emerge in the near future. This convention – the content of which calls for pragmatism and humanism – is at the convergence of several choices. Even though the institutional framework of the UNESCO appears more suitable than that of the United Nations Organization, ambiguities remain regarding convention policy that need to be carefully considered: should a treaty only ban reproductive cloning, without considering, in the same treaty, regulations governing therapeutic cloning, or should both reproductive and therapeutic cloning be approached in a single treaty instrument?     

How to Make Sense of the Claim “True Knowledge is What Constitutes Action”: A New Interpretation of Wang Yangming’s Doctrine of Unity of Knowledge and Action

No one denies the importance of applying knowledge to actions. But claiming identity (unity) of knowledge and action is quite another thing. There seem to be two problems with the claim: (1) the identity claim implies that the sole cause for one to fail to act on what one judges to be right is ignorance, but it is obviously false that the sole cause of failure in moral actions is ignorance. (2) The identity statement implies non-separation of knowledge and action. But knowledge does not necessarily lead to action. However, the identity of knowledge and action is what a famous Ming Confucian scholar, Wang Yang-ming, proposed and the concept became the central doctrine of his teaching. Though there are several major interpretations of Wang’s doctrine in contemporary literature, it is not clear to me how they deal with the above mentioned difficulties. In this article, I will discuss these interpretations of the doctrine and propose a new interpretation. My purpose is to give an interpretation of Wang’s doctrine that has the capacity of dealing with these challenges to the doctrine and also captures the essence of his teaching.     

Action regulation theory and career self-management

Much of the responsibility for managing careers is shifting from employers to adaptive and proactive employees. A career management intervention based on action regulation theory trained 205 white collar employees to engage actively in their own career building by increasing their self-knowledge, career goal commitment, and career plan quality. As hypothesized, these three variables were positively related to subsequent career self-management behaviors, which led both directly and indirectly to career satisfaction almost 10 months after the intervention. Self-management career interventions based within an employing organization appear feasible.