H10 The acting brain

Question 1

degrees of freedom problem

Answer 1

there is potentially an infinite number of motor solutions for acting on an object

Question 2

motor programs

Answer 2

stored routines that specify certain motor parameters of an action

Question 3

somatosensation

Answer 3

cluster of perceptual processes that relate to the skin & body (including touch, pain,thermal sensation & limb position)

Question 4

proprioception

Answer 4

knowledge of the position of the limbs in space

Question 5

sensorimotor transformation

Answer 5

linking perceptual knowledge of objects in space & of the position of body to enable objects to be acted on

Question 6

homunculus problem

Answer 6

problem of explaining that there is no “I” in the brain that makes decisions (little man in the brain), the “I” is a product of firing neurons

Question 7

primary motor cortex

Answer 7

responsible for execution of voluntary movements of the body

Question 8

hemiplegia

Answer 8

damage to 1 side of primary motor cortex results in a failure to voluntarily move other side of the body

Question 9

premotor cortex

Answer 9

lateral area → important for linking action with visual objects in the environment

Question 10

supplementary motor area (SMA)

Answer 10

medial part of premotor cortex→deals with well-learned actions, particularly action sequences that don’t place strong demands on monitoring environment

Question 11

perseveration

Answer 11

repeating an action that has already been performed & is no longer relevant

Question 12

utilization bahavior

Answer 12

impulsively acting on irrelevant objects in the environment

Question 13

schema

Answer 13

organised set of stored information

Question 14

contention scheduling

Answer 14

mechanism that selects 1 particular schema to be enacted from a host of competing schemas

Question 15

SAS

Answer 15

supervisory attentional system → model to explain goal-driven action
-theoretical higher level cognitive mechanism active in nonroutine or novel situations
-network for the coordination and control of cognitive activity and intentional behavior.

Question 16

mimicry

Answer 16

reproducing an action via sensorimotor transformations that don’t make inferences about the goals & intentions

Question 17

imitation

Answer 17

ability to reproduce the behavior of another based on the goal through observation

Question 18

joint action

Answer 18

situation in which goals are shared between individuals (vb mensen die samen iets zwaars dragen)

Question 19

optic ataxia

Answer 19

inability to use vision ta accurately guide action without basic deficits in visual discrimination or voluntary movement per se

Question 20

parietal reach region (PRR)

Answer 20

part of the occipitoparietal cortex that responds to reaching movements

Question 21

affordances

Answer 21

structural properties of objects imply certain usages

Question 22

ideomotor apraxia

Answer 22

inability to produce appropriate gestures given an object, word or command

Question 23

pantomiming

Answer 23

producing an action from a static picture of an object

Question 24

cerebellar loop

Answer 24

main type of cortical-subcortical loops → involved in coordination of movements

Question 25

basal ganglia loop

Answer 25

main type of cortical-subcortical loops that consist of around 5 different loops → involved in:
-control of cognition
-control of eye movements
-reward-based learning
-initiation& execution of internally generated movements
- sequencing of actions & procedural learning

Question 26

Tourette’s syndrome

Answer 26

hyperkinetic disorder: neuropsychiatric disorder with an onset in childhood characterized by the presence of motor &/ vocal tics