Distinct brain signatures of content and structure violation during action observation

Syntactical regularities of action sequences in the infant brain: when structure matters

“…In contrast to the biphasic response that was previously reported when assessing adults' processing of action syntax (e.g., Maffongelli et al, 2015), in the present study we only replicated the late positiv- the serial model of sentence processing (Friederici, 2002) the ELAN seems to be related to the initial syntactic processing of local dependencies (Hahne & Friederici, 1999) and reflects a highly automatic process, whereas the P600 is seen as a less automatic parsing mechanism. In this way, the two components differ functionally (Friederici, Wang, Herrmann, Maess, & Oertel, 2000;Hahne & Friederici, 1999).…”

“…During action observation, the manipulation of the temporal order of action parts in goal-directed familiar action sequences resulted in a similar biphasic pattern (ELAN-P600; Maffongelli et al, 2015) as reported in language studies (Friederici, 2004;Kim & Osterhout, 2005). During action observation, the manipulation of the temporal order of action parts in goal-directed familiar action sequences resulted in a similar biphasic pattern (ELAN-P600; Maffongelli et al, 2015) as reported in language studies (Friederici, 2004;Kim & Osterhout, 2005).…”

“…Importantly, the selected posterior region of interest was based on prior literature investigating the action N400 (Kaduk et al, 2016;Reid et al, 2009).With this analysis on an extended model, we want to show that before focusing on frontal regions only (where the effects are reported in Maffongelli et al, 2015), we also checked for possible differences distributed over the scalp. Importantly, the selected posterior region of interest was based on prior literature investigating the action N400 (Kaduk et al, 2016;Reid et al, 2009).With this analysis on an extended model, we want to show that before focusing on frontal regions only (where the effects are reported in Maffongelli et al, 2015), we also checked for possible differences distributed over the scalp.…”

“…When hearing a sentence like, "The boy eats a big cake", 2-year-olds shift their gaze towards an edible object (e.g., a cake) as soon as they hear the semantically constraining verb "eats" and prior to hearing the word cake (Mani, Daum, & Huettig, 2016;Mani & Huettig, 2012). In addition, this effect was found when a tool was replaced by an object that was not suitable to fulfill the action (Maffongelli et al, 2015). Recent research has shown that a similar N400 effect is observed in adults in tasks where tool use knowledge (Balconi & Caldiroli, 2011;Sitnikova, Holcomb, Kiyonaga, & Kuperberg, 2008) or tool canonical functions were manipulated (Proverbio & Riva, 2009).…”

Active Inference: A Process Theory

“…These violation responses reach peak amplitude at about 100 ms-or 200 ms in peristimulus time (allowing for 100 ms conduction delays). Although earlier than classical P300 and N400 responses, this protracted and late response is reminiscent of violation responses in event-related potential (ERP) studies when the outcome is inconsistent with the preceding succession of states, such as semantic violations in sentence processing and action observation (Friederici, 2005;Maffongelli et al, 2015). These late violation responses contrast with the early mismatch responses in the previous figure.…”