Timing of grip and goal activation during action perception: a priming study

Decroix, Jérémy; Kalénine, Solène

doi:10.1007/s00221-018-5309-0

Cited by 16 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Therefore, both motor acts and action goal dimensions may independently contribute to modulations of the N400 component. This further suggests that the two dimensions can be dissociated and reflected in the components of visual ERPs, hence complementing previous behavioural results 18,32 . Focusing on the recognition of hand-object actions (i.e., does the action picture display a typical use of the object), Chang et al 33 reported modulations of the N300 component by the processing of action violations (e.g., using a precision grip on an upright pencil versus using a power grasp on an upside-down pencil).…”

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confidence: 86%

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Neural dynamics of grip and goal integration during the processing of others’ actions with objects: An ERP study

Decroix

Roger

Kalénine

2020

Sci Rep

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Recent behavioural evidence suggests that when processing others' actions, motor acts and goalrelated information both contribute to action recognition. Yet the neuronal mechanisms underlying the dynamic integration of the two action dimensions remain unclear. this study aims to elucidate the eRp components underlying the processing and integration of grip and goal-related information. the electrophysiological activity of 28 adults was recorded during the processing of object-directed action photographs (e.g., writing with pencil) containing either grip violations (e.g. upright pencil grasped with atypical-grip), goal violations (e.g., upside-down pencil grasped with typical-grip), both grip and goal violations (e.g., upside-down pencil grasped with atypical-grip), or no violations. participants judged whether actions were overall typical or not according to object typical use. Brain activity was sensitive to the congruency between grip and goal information on the N400, reflecting the semantic integration between the two dimensions. On earlier components, brain activity was affected by grip and goal typicality independently. Critically, goal typicality but not grip typicality affected brain activity on the N300, supporting an earlier role of goal-related representations in action recognition. Findings provide new insights on the neural temporal dynamics of the integration of motor acts and goal-related information during the processing of others' actions.Understanding the actions performed by others is a core ability of human beings 1,2 . Yet, actions are no mere movements but organised and goal-directed movements 3,4 . Thus, understanding others' actions does not only imply the processing of the motor act (e.g., both dynamic and static components of reaching and grasping a bottle) but also the recognition of the actor's goal (e.g., to drink or to move it away). Accordingly, observers mainly perceive others' actions in terms of goals 5-8 and may use different sources of information to this end (e.g., dynamic and static component of the motor act 9 ; functional knowledge about objects 10 ; contextual information 11,12 , among others). Although numerous studies have demonstrated that both information about the motor act and information about the goal of the actor are processed during the decoding of others' actions, the precise role of the two types of information in action recognition remains debated.Important theoretical accounts have highlighted the need to consider the processing of others' actions as a dynamic phenomenon 3,13-15 that cannot be fully uncovered without considering the temporal dynamics of motor acts and action goal decoding. The observation of several successive periods of stability in the brain activity (i.e. "micro-state") when visually processing others' actions 16,17 further supports the idea that the decoding of others' actions is a multistep process. In a recent behavioural experiment, we also demonstrated that the involvement of action goal and static motor act information in action recog...

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confidence: 86%

“…The rather low performances in the task most likely reflect the important working memory load induced by the response procedure. Indeed, our previous experiments with similar tasks and design revealed high-level of accuracy in performing perceptual judgements 18,41 . Similarly, perceptual judgements were rather high (90%) in the pre-test (cf.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 77%

Neural dynamics of grip and goal integration during the processing of others’ actions with objects: An ERP study

Decroix

Roger

Kalénine

2020

Sci Rep

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“…In a recent behavioral study, we reported more direct evidence in favor of the goal-first hypothesis. The recognition of visual actions was facilitated after being briefly primed (66 ms) by actions showing the same action goal, but not the same action grip (Decroix & Kalénine, 2018). This result demonstrated that goal-related information is used earlier that information about visual kinematics when the task puts minimal requirement on the visuo-attentional system (i.e., central presentation of one action picture at a time).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

What first drives visual attention during the recognition of object-directed actions? The role of kinematics and goal information

Decroix

Kalénine

2019

Atten Percept Psychophys

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The recognition of others' object-directed actions is known to involve the decoding of both the visual kinematics of the action and the action goal. Yet whether action recognition is first guided by the processing of visual kinematics or by a prediction about the goal of the actor remains debated. In order to provide experimental evidence to this issue, the present study aimed at investigating whether visual attention would be preferentially captured by visual kinematics or by action goal information when processing others' actions. In a visual search task, participants were asked to find correct actions (e.g., drinking from glass) among distractor actions. Distractors actions contained grip and/or goal violations and could therefore share the correct goal and/or the correct grip with the target. The time course of fixation proportion on each distractor action has been taken as an indicator of visual attention allocation. Results show that visual attention is first captured by the distractor action with similar goal. Then the withdrawal of visual attention from the action distractor with similar goal suggests a later attentional capture by the action distractor with similar grip. Overall, results are in line with predictive approaches of action understanding, which assume that observers first make a prediction about the actor's goal before verifying this prediction using the visual kinematics of the action.

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“…Prior work has shown that people integrate object and action kinematic information to derive the likely goal of observed actions, even while the action is still ongoing ( Ambrosini et al, 2011 ; Bach et al, 2011 ; Decroix & Kalénine, 2018 ; Eshuis, Coventry, & Vulchanova, 2009 ; for a review, see Bach et al, 2014 ). Here, we tested the hypothesis of predictive processing models ( Bach & Schenke, 2017 ; Hudson, Nicholson, Ellis et al, 2016 ; Hudson, Nicholson, Simpson et al, 2016 ) that such goal inferences are immediately translated into perceptual predictions about the actions future path toward the inferred goal, and bias perceptual judgments toward these expected trajectories.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affordance matching predictively shapes the perceptual representation of others’ ongoing actions.

McDonough

Costantini

Hudson

et al. 2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Predictive processing accounts of social perception argue that action observation is a predictive process, in which inferences about others’ goals are tested against the perceptual input, inducing a subtle perceptual confirmation bias that distorts observed action kinematics toward the inferred goals. Here we test whether such biases are induced even when goals are not explicitly given but have to be derived from the unfolding action kinematics. In 2 experiments, participants briefly saw an actor reach ambiguously toward a large object and a small object, with either a whole-hand power grip or an index-finger and thumb precision grip. During its course, the hand suddenly disappeared, and participants reported its last seen position on a touch-screen. As predicted, judgments were consistently biased toward apparent action targets, such that power grips were perceived closer to large objects and precision grips closer to small objects, even if the reach kinematics were identical. Strikingly, these biases were independent of participants’ explicit goal judgments. They were of equal size when action goals had to be explicitly derived in each trial (Experiment 1) or not (Experiment 2) and, across trials and across participants, explicit judgments and perceptual biases were uncorrelated. This provides evidence, for the first time, that people make online adjustments of observed actions based on the match between hand grip and object goals, distorting their perceptual representation toward implied goals. These distortions may not reflect high-level goal assumptions, but emerge from relatively low-level processing of kinematic features within the perceptual system.

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Timing of grip and goal activation during action perception: a priming study

Cited by 16 publications

References 57 publications

Neural dynamics of grip and goal integration during the processing of others’ actions with objects: An ERP study

Neural dynamics of grip and goal integration during the processing of others’ actions with objects: An ERP study

What first drives visual attention during the recognition of object-directed actions? The role of kinematics and goal information

Affordance matching predictively shapes the perceptual representation of others’ ongoing actions.

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