Perception of Action 1 Flashcards
What do we map visual representation of our actions onto?
Our motor systems
What does it mean that mirror neurons are bimodal, visuo-motor neurons?
They respond to both visual and motor stimuli
When do mirror neurons discharge?
When an individual performs an action and when they observe the same action performed by another individual
What is the indirect evidence for human mirror neurons?
- close link between perception and action
- behavioural
- brain imaging (fMRI): premotor cortex (involved in the planning of your own actions)
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS): motor system response is greater is we see someone else performing an action
- This is indirect evidence because it doesn’t have to be explained by mirror neurons
What is direct evidence for human mirror neurons?
Recording from neurons (people undergoing brain surgery from epilepsy)
Intuitively what do humans know we have the capacity to do?
Recognise and imitate other peoples actions
What is cross modal transfer?
The mapping of visual representations of actions onto our motor systems to produce a copy of the action
Why do some investigators think that cross-modal transfer abilities are innate?
Because unlike other species humans are very good at it
What is developmental evidence for perception action mapping?
- infants can imitate caregiver’s facial expressions, hand and mouth movements, head turns ect
- meaning 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
When did Piaget think the perception action mapping ability occurs in development?
No earlier than a year old
What evidence is there from Meltzoff and Moore (1977) that suggests that babies younger than a year are able to perform perception action mapping?
- 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 from Oostenbroek et al., 2016?
- They performed a longitudinal study looking at babies - 1, 3, 6 and 9 weeks
- Large number of alternative control model behaviours
- Behaviour matching model was found to be more likely compared to some but not other control behaviours
- tongue protrusion may have been elicited by observing faces
- thought that true imitation may emerge later (6-9 months) as proposed by Piaget
What is Active intermodal matching (AIM) - Meltzoff & Moore (1997)?
- 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 their motor output
What does AIM (active intermodal matching) involve?
- perception and action having independent coding/ representation
- A ‘specialist’ module for imitation
What are other theories about neonate imitation?
- IM (ASL)
- common coding for perception and action
- imitation part of ‘generalist’ processes for motor control and learning