8. Perception of Action Flashcards
Define Cross-modal Transfer.
- Recognition of an object through a sense other than the sense through which the object was originally encountered.
- We can seamlessly map visual representations of actions onto our motor systems (crossmodal transfer) to produce a copy of the action
What is the developmental evidence for PAM?
- Infants can imitate caregiver’s facial expressions, hand and mouth movements, head turns, etc
- Babies must build up a representation of the visual image of the caregiver’s face/mouth and map this onto their own motor representation of the movement
PAM
Perception-action mapping
What did Meltzoff and Moore (1977) find when investigating PAM?
- Piaget thought this ability occurred no earlier than 1 year
- Babies aged 12 – 21 days could imitate certain facial expressions
- Imitate specific acts (i.e., lip protrusion vs. tongue protrusion) not just whole body parts even after a delay
What is the evidence against neonate imitation?
(Oostenbroek et al., 2016)
- Recent more rigorous study challenges previous evidence
- Longitudinal study - 1, 3, 6, and 9 weeks
- Large number of alternative control model behaviours
- Behaviour matching model more likely compared to some but not other control behaviours
- Tongue protrusion may be elicited by observing faces
- True imitation may emerge later (6-9 months) as proposed by Piaget
Define Active Intermodal Matching (AIM).
- The proposed mechanism by which newborn infants are able to imitate the movements they observe.
Describe Active Intermodal Matching (AIM).
- Neonates recognise equivalences between body transformations they see and those of their own body that they ‘feel’ themselves make
- Baby’s emotional expressions induce adults to produce similar expressions, which provides the infant with a visual input to match his motor output
Describe the Active Intermodal Matching (AIM) model pathway stages.
- Visual perception of target adult facial acts
- Supramodel representations of acts
- Equivalence detector
- Infant motor acts
- Proprioceptive information links back to the equivalence detector
What does the Active Intermodal Matching (AIM) model involve.
- perception and action having independent coding/representation
- A “specialist” module for imitation
What do other theories (IM and ASL) of Action-perception movement involve?
- Common coding for perception and action
- Imitation part of “generalist” processes for motor control and learning
Describe the Ideomotor Theory (IM)
The ideomotor phenomenon is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously.
Describe the Associative Sequence Learning (ASL) Theory.
Emphasises learning through experience; e.g. see consequence of own hand action
Describe the Dual route model of imitation.
- Suggests that meaningful and meaningless actions are processed through either an indirect or a direct route, respectively.
- Incorporates aspects of the other models
- Semantic – meaningful actions, stored in repetoire
- Visuomotor/direct – meaningless actions – mirror neurones
(Rumiati & Tessari, 2002)
What are the stages of the Dual route model of imitation?
- Input Action
- Visual analysis
- Long-Term Semantic Memory
- ST/WM
- Output Action
semantic route 1 –>5
direct route 2 –>4
What are the 2 routes in the Dual route model of imitation?
- Semantic Route follows the model from Input Action to 5. Output Action linearly.
- Direct Route goes from the visual analysis to the ST/WM stage.
What are the general properties of Mirror Neurons?
- Bimodal, visuo-motor neurons
- Discharge when individual performs an action and when they observe the same action performed by another individual
- They don’t respond to mimicked action in the absence of an object, or if the object moves robotically without an external agent.
What did Umiltà et al. (2001) conclude?
Mirror neurons active during observation of partially hidden actions (predicts action outcome even in absence of complete visual information)
What did Kohler et al. (2002) conclude?
Audiovisual mirror neurons respond to the sound typically produced by the action
Where are mirror neurons located in monkeys?
- Found in monkey area F5 of premotor cortex and inferior parietal lobe
- Somatotopically organised
Where are mirror neurons located in humans?
- Human homologue in Broca’s area (BA44), ventral inferior frontal gyrus (BA6), posterior parietal lobe and superior temporal lobe
- Somatotopically organised
What are the 3-types of neurons in Monkey F5 ?
- ‘action observation-related’ visuomotor neurons (mirror neurons)
- motor neurons
- Canonical visuomotor neurons (also called ‘object observation-related’ neurons)
What is the indirect evidence of mirror neurones in humans?
○ Close link between perception and action
○ Behavioural
○ Brain Imaging (fMRI)
○ Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
What is the direct evidence of mirror neurones in humans?
Recording from neurones
- often in surgery due to epilepsy.
What is the behavioural evidence for the presence of mirror neurones in humans?
- Faster responses when compatibility between observed and executed movements (Brass et al, 2000, 2001)
- Known as ‘automatic imitation’ – lab analogue of mimicry
- if you observe a finger move upwards you are faster to move finger upwards and slower to press finger down.
What is the Brain imaging evidence for the presence of mirror neurones in humans?
- Somatotopic activation of premotor and parietal cortex (Buccino et al, 2001) - fMRI
- Areas correspond to observations of actions of different body parts
What is the TMS evidence for the presence of mirror neurones in humans?
Fadiga et al. (2005)
- Use motor evoked potentials to show that observing an action produces increased motor excitability - This suggests that action observation biases activity in the primary Motor area itself.
What is the direct recording evidence for the presence of mirror neurones in humans?
(Mukamel et al., 2010)
- Recorded from 1177 neurons in 21 patients undergoing surgery for intractable epilepsy
- They observed and executed grasping actions and facial gestures
- Action observation-related (‘mirror’) neurons found in medial frontal lobe (supplementary motor area; SMA) and medial temporal lobe (hippocampus)
What did Buccino et al., (2007) find when investigating the similarities in motor neurons across species?
- Looked at Humans, Monkeys and Dogs
- Same areas activated to movements common to all three species i.e., biting
- Speech and lip-smacking activates same area in human and monkey but dog barking does not
Do Monkeys immitate?
Despite the presence of mirror neurons in monkey premotor cortex they do not imitate
If not imitation, what are mirror neurons for?
Mirror neurons enable non-human primates to infer intention of action (goal-directed) but not low-level kinematic description of movement needed for imitation (Lynons et al., 2006)
Role of Area 44 in humans?
Area 44 related to speech and motor representation of hand and mouth movements
Role of Area BA6 in humans?
BA6 related to arm and head movements
What is the Role of BA46?
Involved in learning of novel and complex acts.
- monkeys don’t have this area so they cannot learn novel and complex acts
Do human actions need to be goal directed?
No
- Action does not need to be goal-directed or contain an object
- Meaningless movements are represented
Do monkey actions need to be goal directed?
Yes
- Action must be goal-directed (often involve actual object)
Explain the roles of area F5 in monkeys.
- Lateral part of F5 80% of mirror neurons related to observation of ingestive behaviours (i.e., grasping food with mouth, biting, sucking)
- Remaining 20% communicative (lip-smacking)
What does the AIM model suggest?
AIM suggests that we have a specific module for imitation.
