Observing functional actions affects semantic processing of tools: evidence of a motor-to-semantic priming

Bellis, Francesco De; Ferrara, Antonia; Errico, Domenico; Panico, Francesco; Sagliano, Laura; Conson, Massimiliano; Trojano, Luigi

doi:10.1007/s00221-015-4432-4

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…the targets they pointed to) was dependent on the recently observed movements of the model. This greater attention to the model’s movements (Bek et al 2016 ) and greater relevance of her movements to the participant’s task may also account for some of the differences in obstacle priming between the present study and those of Griffiths and Tipper ( 2009 , 2012 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Moving higher and higher: imitators’ movements are sensitive to observed trajectories regardless of action rationality

Forbes

Hamilton

2017

Exp Brain Res

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Humans sometimes perform actions which, at least superficially, appear suboptimal to the goal they are trying to achieve. Despite being able to identify these irrational actions from an early age, humans display a curious tendency to copy them. The current study recorded participants’ movements during an established imitation task and manipulated the rationality of the observed action in two ways. Participants observed videos of a model point to a series of targets with either a low, high or ‘superhigh’ trajectory either in the presence or absence of obstacles between her targets. The participants’ task was to watch which targets the model pointed to and then point to the same targets on the table in front of them. There were no obstacles between the participants’ targets. Firstly, we found that the peak height of participants’ movements between their targets was sensitive to the height of the model’s movements, even in the ‘superhigh’ condition where the model’s action was rated as irrational. Secondly, participants showed obstacle priming—the peak height of participants’ movements was higher after having observed the model move over obstacles to reach her targets, compared to when there were no obstacles between her targets. This suggests that participants code the environment of co-actors into their own motor programs, even when this compromises the efficiency of their own movements. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of theories of imitation and obstacle priming.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Moving higher and higher: imitators’ movements are sensitive to observed trajectories regardless of action rationality

Forbes

Hamilton

2017

Exp Brain Res

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“…Interestingly, the non-dominant hand “advantage” has been replicated in left-handers for joint angle matching (Goble et al 2009 ) and pinch width discrimination (Han et al 2013 ), i.e., tasks which require proprioceptive judgment without explicit visualization of the body. Tasks with a visual localization component, such as the one used in our study, may rely on different mechanisms (Tsay et al 2016 ) that are more vulnerable to top-down influences. In other words, left-handers might still have a lateralization of function across the hands such that their non-dominant arm is still specialized for force control, but for tasks which require accessing higher-level body representations (for example visualizing a body part and comparing it to a visual target), left-handers may be less vulnerable to distortions in body image driven by functional lateralization.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of hand position on perceived finger orientation in left- and right-handers

Fraser

Harris

2017

Exp Brain Res

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In the absence of visual feedback, the perceived orientation of the fingers is systematically biased. In right-handers these biases are asymmetrical between the left and right hands in the horizontal plane and may reflect common functional postures for the two hands. Here we compared finger orientation perception in right- and left-handed participants for both hands, across various hand positions in the horizontal plane. Participants rotated a white line on a screen optically superimposed over their hand to indicate the perceived position of the finger that was rotated to one of seven orientations with the hand either aligned with the body midline, aligned with the shoulder, or displaced by twice the shoulder-to-midline distance from the midline. We replicated the asymmetric pattern of biases previously reported in right-handed participants (left hand biased towards an orientation ~30° inward, right hand ~10° inward). However, no such asymmetry was found for left-handers, suggesting left-handers may use different strategies when mapping proprioception to body or space coordinates and/or have less specialization of function between the hands. Both groups’ responses rotated further outward as distance of the hand from the body midline increased, consistent with other research showing spatial orientation estimates diverge outward in the periphery. Finally, for right-handers, precision of responses was best when the hand was aligned with the shoulder compared to the other two conditions. These results highlight the unique role of hand dominance and hand position in perception of finger orientation, and provide insight into the proprioceptive position sense of the upper limbs.

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“…Its main disadvantage is the lack of selectivity for activating small-diameter fibers, which is problematic in human experimental pain studies, as the nociceptive Aδ and C fibers have smaller diameter than the non-nociceptive Aβ fibers. A more preferential small-diameter fiber activation could be beneficially applied in experimental pain studies investigating long-lasting hyperalgesia [2–4] and membrane properties in cutaneous nerve fibers [5]. The small diameter (Aδ and C fibers) and the large diameter Aβ fibers will in this paper be referred to as small and large fibers, respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preferential activation of small cutaneous fibers through small pin electrode also depends on the shape of a long duration electrical current

et al. 2019

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Background Electrical stimulation is widely used in experimental pain research but it lacks selectivity towards small nociceptive fibers. When using standard surface patch electrodes and rectangular pulses, large fibers are activated at a lower threshold than small fibers. Pin electrodes have been designed for overcoming this problem by providing a higher current density in the upper epidermis where the small nociceptive fibers mainly terminate. At perception threshold level, pin electrode stimuli are rather selectively activating small nerve fibers and are perceived as painful, but for high current intensity, which is usually needed to evoke sufficient pain levels, large fibers are likely co-activated. Long duration current has been shown to elevate the threshold of large fibers by the mechanism of accommodation. However, it remains unclear whether the mechanism of accommodation in large fibers can be utilized to activate small fibers even more selectively by combining pin electrode stimulation with a long duration pulse. Results In this study, perception thresholds were determined for a patch- and a pin electrode for different pulse shapes of long duration. The perception threshold ratio between the two different electrodes was calculated to estimate the ability of the pulse shapes to preferentially activate small fibers. The perception threshold ratios were compared between stimulation pulses of 5- and 50 ms durations and shapes of: exponential increase, linear increase, bounded exponential, and rectangular. Qualitative pain perception was evaluated for all pulse shapes delivered at 10 times perception threshold. The results showed a higher perception threshold ratio for long duration 50 ms pulses than for 5 ms pulses. The highest perception threshold ratio was found for the 50 ms, bounded exponential pulse shape. Results furthermore revealed different strength-duration relation between the bounded exponential- and rectangular pulse shapes. Pin electrode stimulation at high intensity was mainly described as “stabbing”, “shooting”, and “sharp”. Conclusion These results indicate that long duration pulses with a bounded exponential increase preferentially activate the small nociceptive fibers with a pin electrode and concurrently cause elevated threshold of large non-nociceptive fibers with patch electrodes.

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Observing functional actions affects semantic processing of tools: evidence of a motor-to-semantic priming

Cited by 9 publications

References 65 publications

Moving higher and higher: imitators’ movements are sensitive to observed trajectories regardless of action rationality

Moving higher and higher: imitators’ movements are sensitive to observed trajectories regardless of action rationality

The effect of hand position on perceived finger orientation in left- and right-handers

Preferential activation of small cutaneous fibers through small pin electrode also depends on the shape of a long duration electrical current

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