Schema design and implementation of the grasp-related mirror neuron system

Abstract

Mirror neurons within a monkey's premotor area F5 fire not only when the monkey performs a certain class of action but also when the monkey observes another monkey (or the experimenter) perform a similar action (Gallese et al. 1996;Rizzolatti et al. 1996a) . It has thus been argued that these neurons are crucial for understanding of actions by others. We offer the Hand-State Hypothesis as a new explanation of the evolution of this capability, hypothesizing that these neurons first evolved to augment the "canonical" F5 neurons (active during self-movement based on observation of an object) by providing visual feedback on "hand state", relating the shape of the hand to the shape of the object. We then introduce the MNS (Mirror Neuron System) model of F5 and related brain regions. The existing FARS (Fagg-Arbib-Rizzolatti-Sakata) model (Fagg and Arbib 1998) represents circuitry for visually-guided grasping of objects, linking parietal area AIP with F5 canonical neurons. The MNS model extends the AIP visual pathway by also modeling pathways, directed toward F5 mirror neurons, which match arm-hand trajectories to the affordances and location of a potential target object. We present the basic schemas for the MNS model, then aggregate them into three "grand schemas" − Visual Analysis of Hand State, Reach and Grasp, and the Core Mirror Circuit − for each of which we present a useful implementation. With this implementation we show how the mirror system may learn to recognize actions already in the repertoire of the F5 canonical neurons. We show that the connectivity pattern of mirror neuron circuitry can be established through training, and that the resultant network can exhibit a range of novel, physiologically interesting, behaviors during the process of action recognition. We train the system on the basis of final grasp but then observe the whole time course of mirror neuron activity, yielding predictions for neurophysiological experiments under conditions of spatial perturbation, altered kinematics, and ambiguous grasp execution which highlight the importance of the timing of mirror neuron activity.

Vision, action and language unified through embodiment

“…Arbib and colleagues designed several models, including the FARS model (Fagg & Arbib, 1998) and various incarnations of the MNS models (MNS: Oztop & Arbib, 2002;MNS2-I: Bonaiuto, Rosta, & Arbib, 2007;MNS2-II: Bonaiuto & Arbib, 2010), that might be conducive to the intended cross-disciplinary investigation the topic of this special issue. Two other proposals merit attention in this regard since they have started to formalize some procedures to build cross-disciplinary frameworks to investigate psychological and neuroscientific phenomena.…”

Focusing on body sites: the role of spatial attention in action perception

“…In recent years it provided a unifying framework for such diverse fields as the study of language evolution (Rizzolatti and Arbib 1998;Arbib 2005), infant learning and imitation (e.g., Elsner and Aschersleben 2003), social cognition (Barsalou et al 2003;Preston and de Waal 2002;Carr et al 2003), and the causes of the autistic disorder (Williams et al 2001;Théoret et al 2005;Sebanz et al 2005;Dapretto et al 2006). Yet, not much is known about the processes that underlie this mirroring capacity, and models explaining the properties of the mirror neurons are scarce (see, however, Oztop and Arbib 2002).…”

An overview of 3D object grasp synthesis algorithms

“…Others use stereoscopy to track the demonstrator's hand performing a grasp [51] or try to recognize its hand shape from a database of grasp images [52]. Moreover, mirror neurons that fire not only when grasping but also when observing an action were also introduced to the grasping problem [53]. Our LbD review aims to focus on the specifics of used sensors.…”

“…Oztop and Arbib [53] propose a grasping strategy based on mirror neurons. The latter were identified within a monkey's premotor area F5 and they fire not only when the monkey performs a certain class of actions but also when the monkey observes another monkey (or the experimenter) performing a similar action.…”