Task 1

Question 1

What is motor planning?

Answer 1

Motor planning is any process related to the preparation of a movement occurring during reaction time prior to movement onset, encompassing decision-making about task-relevant stimuli in the environment​

Question 2

How long does the reaction time for motor planning typically last?

Answer 2

200ms​

Question 3

What is a motor goal?

Answer 3

A motor goal is an object, location, or motion pattern selected as the desired outcome of a movement​

Question 4

How many critical processes are involved in movement generation?

Answer 4

There are six critical processes: three “what” processes related to the establishment of a goal and three “how” processes describing the movement to achieve the goal​

Question 5

What does the formation of motor goals involve?

Answer 5

The formation of motor goals involves perceiving an object of interest and determining what is to be done to that object, including decisions about the object’s location, application of task constraints, and choice of action initiation​

Question 6

What role does attention play in motor planning?

Answer 6

Attention is required to select an object of interest and facilitates the generation of priority maps to aid in the selection of motor goals​

Question 7

How are decisions made in motor planning for simple and difficult tasks?

Answer 7

For simple tasks, the object of interest is the motor goal

More difficult tasks may require a decision about which goal to select

Question 8

What do drift-diffusion models describe in motor planning?

Answer 8

Drift-diffusion models describe how evidence for a particular goal is gradually accumulated until it surpasses a threshold, leading to goal selection and movement​

Question 9

What role do the Frontal Eye Fields play in motor planning?

Answer 9

The Frontal Eye Fields are associated with the decision about a motor goal and guiding upcoming actions, rather than being strictly a motor area

Question 10

What is the role of the prefrontal cortex in motor goal formation?

Answer 10

The prefrontal cortex encodes task rules, associates cues with goals, determines response inhibition or initiation, and describes overall task structure​

Question 11

What does the realization of motor goals involve?

Answer 11

It involves motor planning processes that reduce ambiguity about how the goal will be achieved by specifying details of the movement, such as speed and trajectory​

Question 12

What is the difference between action selection and movement specification?

Answer 12

Action selection involves choosing and describing the motion of the end-effector

Movement specification involves determining the complete motor command and necessary postural adjustments

Question 13

What are control policies in motor planning?

Answer 13

Control policies, such as optimal feedback control (OFC), determine the movement trajectory given the current state of the limb, the desired endpoint, and associated costs​

Question 14

How is neural activity in the motor cortex related to motor planning?

Answer 14

Neural activity in the motor cortex prior to movement correlates with movement direction, extent, speed, and curvature, and is viewed as setting the initial state of the motor system

Question 15

What are the two substreams in the dorsal stream and their functions?

Answer 15

The dorso-dorsal pathway is concerned with online action control, while the ventro-dorsal pathway is involved in space perception and action understanding

Question 16

What are the effects of lesions in the dorsal stream on visuo-motor functions?

Answer 16

Lesions can affect smooth pursuit eye movements, accuracy of goal-directed arm movements, speed discriminations, complex motion perception, and visual space encoding​

Question 17

What happens in the dorso-dorsal stream during object processing?

Answer 17

It is the most direct visual pathway for action, engaging areas like V6a for reaching targets, and lesions here can cause optic ataxia (OA)​

Question 18

What is the role of the ventro-dorsal stream in object processing?

Answer 18

It processes sensorimotor information based on longer-term object use representations, and lesions can cause limb apraxia (LA)​

Question 19

What are affordances in the context of object interaction?

Answer 19

Affordances are the interactive and variable processes that emerge from the interaction between an object and the effector, facilitating actions like grasping​

Question 20

What is the difference between grasp and use processing in terms of time?

Answer 20

Grasp processing is short-term and based on current information

Use processing maintains information over longer periods for functional actions​

Question 21

How does automatic sensory or motor information activation affect tasks?

Answer 21

Some sensory or motor information is automatically activated even when irrelevant,

Like as motor-visual priming where motor responses direct attention to congruent regions of space

Question 22

How does verbal context influence action preparation?

Answer 22

Verbal context, similar to motor preparation, drives attention to action-relevant features and activates primary and premotor regions during action verbs or sentences​

Question 23

How do self-generated actions differ from externally triggered actions in neural activity?

Answer 23

More cells in the supplementary motor area (SMA) fire during self-initiated movements than in externally triggered movements​

Question 24

What are the potential challenges in studying self-generated movements?

Answer 24

Challenges include unclear external cue specifications, potential confounds like working memory, and more complex conditions for self-initiated actions

Question 25

What are some conditions for self-generated action?

Answer 25

• time intervals
• one action cuing the next
• goal representation retrieving appropriate actions
• changes in goals cuing changes in actions

Question 26

What role does the anterior cingulate sulcus play in outcome evaluation?

Answer 26

Encoding the value of goals

in terms of probability, payoff, and cost,

involved in switching actions when expected outcomes do not occur​

Question 27

How is the paracingulate cortex involved in performance reflection?

Answer 27

It shows higher activity when making errors and is involved in self-referential processes and metacognition

Question 28

What are the key anatomical connections of the medial frontal cortex?

Answer 28

It receives heavy proprioceptive input from area 3a, is closely interconnected with the amygdala, and is linked with cingulate areas processing reward and memory retrieval​

Question 29

How does the medial frontal cortex contribute to voluntary control through inhibition?

Answer 29

Regions like the SMA and SEF contribute to automatic inhibition of unwanted motor plans activated unconsciously by condition-action associations

Question 30

What did the masked-prime task reveal about motor inhibition?

Answer 30

At short prime-target intervals, primes facilitate responses

At longer intervals, an automatic inhibitory mechanism suppresses motor activation​