Embodied Memory Judgments Yang, Shu-Ju; Gallo, David A; Beilock, Sian L
Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition,
09/2009, Letnik:
35, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
It is well known that perceptual and conceptual fluency can influence episodic memory judgments. Here, the authors asked whether fluency arising from the motor system also impacts recognition memory. ...Past research has shown that the perception of letters automatically activates motor programs of typing actions in skilled typists. In this study, expert typists made more false recognition errors to letter dyads which would be easier or more fluent to type than nonfluent dyads, while no typing action was involved (Experiment 1). This effect was minimized with a secondary motor task that implicated the same fingers that would be used to type the presented dyads, but this effect remained with a noninterfering motor task (Experiment 2). Typing novices, as a comparison group, did not show fluency effects in recognition memory. These findings suggest that memory is influenced by covert simulation of actions associated with the items being judged-even when there is no intention to act-and highlight the intimate connections between higher level cognition and action.
Previous research has shown that the fingers’ aperture during grasp is affected by the numerical values of numbers embedded in the grasped objects: Numerically larger digits lead to larger grip ...apertures than do numerically smaller digits during the initial stages of the grasp. The relationship between numerical magnitude and visuomotor control has been taken to support the idea of a common underlying neural system mediating the processing of magnitude and the computation of object size for motor control. The purpose of the present study was to test whether the effect of magnitude on motor preparation is automatic. During grasping, we asked participants to attend to the colors of the digit while ignoring numerical magnitude. The results showed that numerical magnitude affected grip aperture during the initial stages of the grasp, even when magnitude information was irrelevant to the task at hand. These findings suggest that magnitude affects grasping preparation in an automatic fashion.
Two experiments were conducted to determine if multi-frequency (2:1 and 3:2) coordination between the limbs is enhanced when integrated feedback is provided in the form of Lissajous plots, attention ...demands are reduced, and attempts to consciously coordinate the limbs are not encouraged. To determine the influence of vision of the limbs, covered and uncovered limb groups were provided online Lissajous feedback. To determine the impact of the Lissajous feedback, a control group that was not provided Lissajous feedback was also tested. The data indicated remarkably effective performances after 5 min of practice when limbs were covered and Lissajous feedback was provided. When Lissajous feedback was provided and vision of the limbs was permitted, performance deteriorated. Performance by the group not provided Lissajous feedback was quite poor. The findings suggest that some of the difficulty associated with producing difficult bimanual coordination patterns are due to the less than optimal perceptual information available in various testing situations and the attentional focus imposed by the participant.
Research has shown that retrieval of learned information is better when the original learning context is reinstated during testing than when this context is changed. Recently, such contextual ...dependencies have also been found for perceptual-motor behavior. The current study investigated the nature of context-dependent learning in the discrete sequence production task, and in addition examined whether the amount of practice affects the extent to which sequences are sensitive to contextual alterations. It was found that changing contextual cues—but not the removal of such cues—had a detrimental effect on performance. Moreover, this effect was observed only after limited practice, but not after extensive practice. Our findings support the notion of a novel type of context-dependent learning during initial motor skill acquisition and demonstrate that this context-dependence reduces with practice. It is proposed that a gradual development with practice from stimulus-driven to representation-driven sequence execution underlies this practice effect.
Sharing a drink or passing a tool to another person is frequently done in our daily lives. However, a second thought is rarely given about how the object should be handed; instead we pay attention to ...other factors (e.g., the company). This interaction (handing a tool to someone) is interesting, since it may give insight to how motor intentions are predicted. Research has demonstrated that individuals exhibit an end-state comfort effect when manipulating objects, and it is of interest to determine how this is applied to a joint-action paradigm. The purpose of this experiment was to determine if participants would anticipate the confederate's postural requirements and pass tools in a manner that allowed the confederate to have beginning state comfort and thus facilitate the motion sequence as a whole. That is, would the participant incur the cost of the movement by adopting an awkward posture to facilitate the use of the tool by the confederate? The results demonstrated that participants allowed the confederate to adopt a comfortable beginning state comfort on 100% of the trials for all the tools. However, the participants did not sacrifice end-state comfort, demonstrating that the participants were able to plan ahead to both maximize their own end-state comfort and the beginning state comfort of the confederate.
The link between perception and action allows us to interact fluently with the world. Objects which ‘afford’ an action elicit a visuomotor response, facilitating compatible responses. In addition, ...positioning objects to interact with one another appears to facilitate grouping, indicated by patients with extinction being better able to identify interacting objects (e.g. a corkscrew going towards the top of a wine bottle) than the same objects when positioned incorrectly for action (Riddoch, Humphreys, Edwards, Baker, & Willson,
Nature Neuroscience
,
6
, 82–89,
2003
). Here, we investigate the effect of action relations on the perception of normal participants. We found improved identification of briefly-presented objects when in correct versus incorrect co-locations for action. For the object that would be ‘active’ in the interaction (the corkscrew), this improvement was enhanced when it was oriented for use by the viewer’s dominant hand. In contrast, the position-related benefit for the ‘passive’ object was stronger when the objects formed an action-related pair (corkscrew and bottle) compared with an unrelated pair (corkscrew and candle), and it was reduced when spatial cues disrupted grouping between the objects. We propose that these results indicate two separate effects of action relations on normal perception: a visuomotor response to objects which strongly afford an action; and a grouping effect between objects which form action-related pairs.
Marc Jeannerod pioneered a representational approach to movement and action. In his approach, motor representations provide both, declarative knowledge about action and procedural knowledge for ...action (action semantics and action pragmatics, respectively). Recent evidence from language comprehension and action simulation supports the claim that action pragmatics and action semantics draw on common representational resources, thus challenging the traditional divide between declarative and procedural action knowledge. To account for these observations, three kinds of theoretical frameworks are discussed: (i) semantics is grounded in pragmatics, (ii) pragmatics is anchored in semantics, and (iii) pragmatics is part and parcel of semantics.
•New evidence challenges the divide between declarative/procedural action knowledge.•Action semantics and action pragmatics draw on common resources.•Action pragmatics may be part and parcel of action semantics.
The Cinderella of Psychology Rosenbaum, David A
The American psychologist,
05/2005, Letnik:
60, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
One would expect psychology-the science of mental life and behavior-to place great emphasis on the means by which mental life is behaviorally expressed. Surprisingly, however, the study of how ...decisions are enacted-the focus of motor control research-has received little attention in psychology. This article documents the neglect and considers possible reasons for it. The hypotheses considered include three that are raised and then rejected: (a) no famous psychologists have studied motor control, (b) cognitive psychologists are mainly interested in uniquely human functions, and (c) motor control is simply too hard to study. Three other hypotheses are more viable: (d) cognitive psychologists have been more interested in epistemology than in action, (e) psychologists have disfavored motor control because overt responses were the only admissible measure in behaviorism, and (f) psychologists have felt that neuroscientists have the market cornered when it comes to motor control research. There are signs that motor control's Cinderella status is changing.
The associative sequence learning model proposes that the development of the mirror system depends on the same mechanisms of associative learning that mediate Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. ...To test this model, two experiments used the reduction of automatic imitation through incompatible sensorimotor training to assess whether mirror system plasticity is sensitive to contingency (i.e., the extent to which activation of one representation predicts activation of another). In Experiment 1, residual automatic imitation was measured following incompatible training in which the action stimulus was a perfect predictor of the response (contingent) or not at all predictive of the response (noncontingent). A contingency effect was observed: There was less automatic imitation indicative of more learning in the contingent group. Experiment 2 replicated this contingency effect and showed that, as predicted by associative learning theory, it can be abolished by signaling trials in which the response occurs in the absence of an action stimulus. These findings support the view that mirror system development depends on associative learning and indicate that this learning is not purely Hebbian. If this is correct, associative learning theory could be used to explain, predict, and intervene in mirror system development.
We examined the effects of a brief period of limb immobilization on the cognitive level of action control. A splint placed on the participants' left hand was used as a means of immobilization. We ...used a hand mental rotation task to investigate the immobilization-induced effects on motor imagery performance (Experiments 1 and 2) and a number mental rotation task to investigate whether immobilization-induced effects are also found when visual imagery is involved (Experiment 2). We also examined whether the effects of immobilization vary as a function of individuals' vividness of motor imagery (Experiment 2). The immobilized participants performed the mental rotation tasks before and immediately after the splint removal. The control group did not undergo the immobilization procedure. For hand stimuli, response time analysis showed a lack of task-repetition benefit following immobilization (Experiments 1 and 2) except when the visual imagery task was performed first (Experiment 2). Following immobilization, a flattening in the response time profile for left hand stimuli was observed as a function of stimuli rotation (Experiments 1 and 2), especially for participants with less vivid motor imagery (Experiment 2). We did not find an immobilization-induced effect on number stimuli. These findings revealed that the cognitive representation of hand movements is modified by immobilization and that sensorimotor deprivation specifically affects motor simulation of the immobilized hand. We discuss the possibility that immobilization affects the sensorimotor system due to the reduced processing of proprioceptive feedback, which lead some participants to switch from a motor to a visual imagery strategy.
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