Developmental correspondence between action prediction and motor ability in early infancy

Abstract

How do infants understand the goals of others' actions? It has been proposed that actionunderstanding results from a mechanism whereby an observed action is mapped onto the observer's own motor representation of that action. However, direct evidence of the matching process in early infancy is difficult to find. Here we show the developmental correspondence between action prediction and motor ability by comparing gazing and grasping responses to interesting objects in 4-to 10-month-old infants and adults. The onset of infants' ability to predict the goal of others' action was found to be synchronized with the onset of their own ability to perform that action. moreover, there was correspondence relationship between action-prediction ability and motor ability of same action. our findings indicate that the ability to predict others' action goals requires a corresponding motor ability, providing ontogenetic evidence for a direct matching process by a mirror neuron system.

Extrapolation and direct matching mediate anticipation in infancy

“…However, several studies show that infants' experience with a particular task is related to their gaze latencies during observation of the same task (Claxton & McCarty, 2003;Gredebäck & Melinder, 2010;Kanakogi & Itakura, 2011;. We argue that the six-month-olds in the present study did not anticipate the goal of the human action because they do not yet have a motor schema of putting objects into containers.…”

“…In object representation studies, an occluder temporarily blocks the visibility of the moving object (von Hofsten, Kochukhova, & Rosander, 2007) whereas action anticipation studies usually present fully visible and non-obstructed movement paths. For examples of this, see Falck-Ytter et al, 2006;Gredebäck, Stasiewicz, Falck-Ytter, Rosander, & von Hofsten, 2009;Kanakogi & Itakura, 2011); for exceptions, see Costantini, Ambrosini, & Sinigaglia, 2012;Elsner, Falck-Ytter, & Gredebäck, 2012;Elsner, D'Alusio, Gredebäck, Falck-Ytter, & Fadiga, 2013). However, in these latter action prediction studies, the occluder was not placed in the middle of the object path as in object representation studies, but at the end of the object path.…”

“…Further, found that older infants who had experience in performing a manual task (in that case, solving a puzzle) showed faster anticipatory eye-movements to the goal while observing the task, indicating a connection between the infants' own motor experience and their ability to predict the action goals of others. Thus, when it comes to human actions, the ability to anticipate future events seems to be dependent on ample experience with the observed action (Falck-Ytter et al, 2006; Extrapolation and direct matching mediate anticipation in infancy 4 Kanakogi & Itakura, 2011;Cannon, Woodward, Gredebäck, von Hofsten, & Turek 2012).…”

The role of observers' gaze behaviour when watching object manipulation tasks: predicting and evaluating the consequences of action

“…This gaze behaviour helps guide the hand to the target [28 -30] and also permits monitoring, in central vision, of mechanical events that represent goals of action phases [4,5,31,32]. We suggest that the similar eye movements produced by observers of manipulation tasks [6][7][8][9]17,33,34], also serve to monitor, in central vision, mechanical events that mark the completion of action phases, and that this involves neural processes resembling those used for prediction and evaluation of these events during action. When participants were explicitly asked to judge the weight of the target block, which involves comparing predicted and actual sensory information related to the lift, they directed their gaze proactively to the blocks as in self-guided actionobservation.…”

“…When people observe manipulation tasks, their gaze behaviour is similar to that of the actor [6][7][8][9]. For example, when watching an actor pick up and replace a series of objects, observers direct their gaze to each object before the actor's hand arrives and keep gaze on the object until the hand departs for the next object [9].…”