Towards and away from the body: The relevance of the direction of use in the coding of object-related actions

Tella, Gianluca Scotto di; Ruotolo, Francesco; Ruggiero, Gennaro; Iachini, Tina; Bartolo, Angela

doi:10.1177/1747021821994711

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…However, tool-use actions directed towards the body could require the additional involvement of body structural description. 205–207 This is consistent with a recent study, which showed that pantomiming a tool-use action directed towards versus away from the body involves distinct cognitive processes. 208 Future research is needed to test this prediction, which could explain why the left AG has been sometimes found to be associated with tool-use disorders.…”

Section: Body Structural Descriptionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Pantomime of tool use: looking beyond apraxia

Reynaud

Baumard

Rossetti

et al. 2021

Brain Communications

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Pantomime has a long tradition in clinical neuropsychology of apraxia. It has been much more used by researchers and clinicians to assess tool-use disorders than real tool use. Nevertheless, it remains incompletely understood and has given rise to controversies, such as the involvement of the left inferior parietal lobe or the nature of the underlying cognitive processes. The present article offers a comprehensive framework, with the aim of specifying the neural and cognitive bases of pantomime. To do so, we conducted a series of meta-analyses of brain-lesion, neuroimaging, and behavioral studies about pantomime and other related tasks (i.e., real tool use, imitation of meaningless postures, and semantic knowledge). The first key finding is that the area PF (Area PF complex) within the left inferior parietal lobe is crucially involved in both pantomime and real tool use as well as in the kinematics component of pantomime. The second key finding is the absence of a well-defined neural substrate for the posture component of pantomime (both grip errors and body-part-as-tool responses). The third key finding is the role played by the intraparietal sulcus in both pantomime and imitation of meaningless postures. The fourth key finding is that the left angular gyrus seems to be critical in the production of motor actions directed toward the body. The fifth key finding is that performance on pantomime is strongly correlated with the severity of semantic deficits. Taken together, these findings invite us to offer a neurocognitive model of pantomime, which provides an integrated alternative to the two hypotheses that dominate the field: The gesture-engram hypothesis and the communicative hypothesis. More specifically, this model assumes that technical reasoning (notably the left area PF), the motor-control system (notably the intraparietal sulcus), body structural description (notably the left angular gyrus), semantic knowledge (notably the polar temporal lobes) and potentially theory of mind (notably the middle prefrontal cortex) work in concert to produce pantomime. The original features of this model open new avenues for understanding the neurocognitive bases of pantomime, emphasizing that pantomime is a communicative task that nevertheless originates in specific tool-use (not motor-related) cognitive processes.

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Section: Body Structural Descriptionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Pantomime of tool use: looking beyond apraxia

Reynaud

Baumard

Rossetti

et al. 2021

Brain Communications

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“…As a matter of fact, if only objects affording actions directed towards the actor’s body are considered, memory for items presented as PMs was superior to that for objects presented as PGs also in the Recognition group (PM, M = 0.77, SD = 0.19; PG, M = 0.65, SD = 0.27). Of course, in this case we can only speculate that the actions evoked by the photographs matched on those presented in the videos, but this is not unlikely given that objects requiring an action towards the body have been found to automatically activate the direction of object use in a verbal categorization task (Scotto di Tella et al 2021 ). Albeit caution is needed, this advantage speaks in favor of a direct link between stronger drive towards assuming a first-person stance and increased memory accuracy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Do graspable objects always leave a motor signature? A study on memory traces

Daprati

Balestrucci²,

Nico

2022

Exp Brain Res

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Several studies have reported the existence of reciprocal interactions between the type of motor activity physically performed on objects and the conceptual knowledge that is retained of them. Whether covert motor activity plays a similar effect is less clear. Certainly, objects are strong triggers for actions, and motor components can make the associated concepts more memorable. However, addition of an action-related memory trace may not always be automatic and could rather depend on ‘how’ objects are encountered. To test this hypothesis, we compared memory for objects that passive observers experienced as verbal labels (the word describing them), visual images (color photographs) and actions (pantomimes of object use). We predicted that the more direct the involvement of action-related representations the more effective would be the addition of a motor code to the experience and the more accurate would be the recall. Results showed that memory for objects presented as words i.e., a format that might only indirectly prime the sensorimotor system, was generally less accurate compared to memory for objects presented as photographs or pantomimes, which are more likely to directly elicit motor simulation processes. In addition, free recall of objects experienced as pantomimes was more accurate when these items afforded actions performed towards one’s body than actions directed away from the body. We propose that covert motor activity can contribute to objects’ memory, but the beneficial addition of a motor code to the experience is not necessarily automatic. An advantage is more likely to emerge when the observer is induced to take a first-person stance during the encoding phase, as may happen for objects affording actions directed towards the body, which obviously carry more relevance for the actor.

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“…This final position or “… the spatial location towards which an action is directed ” is the action goal (van Elk, van Schie, & Bekkering, 2014, p. 223; see also Wong, Goldsmith, & Krakauer, 2016). The action goal contributes to define the intention to act (e.g., “I have to brush my teeth” or “I have to write on the notebook”) and constrains the motor output (van Elk et al., 2014; see also Gigliotti, Sampaio, Bartolo, & Coello, 2020; Osiurak et al., 2021; Rosenbaum, Loukopoulos, Meulenbroek, Vaughan, & Engelbrecht, 1995; Rosenbaum, Vaughan, Barnes, & Jorgensen, 1992; Scotto di Tella, Ruotolo, Ruggiero, Iachini, & Bartolo, 2021). This indicates that the representations of the action goal and the direction of movement to achieve it, that is, toward (henceforth TB actions) or away from the body (henceforth AB actions), play a crucial role in action planning and execution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Scotto di Tella et al. (2021), these differences are due to the fact that one's own body represents a more stable reference than the different objects or structures of the external environment, thus allowing TB tool‐related sensorimotor representations to be activated more rapidly than the AB tool‐related ones.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in the study by Scotto di Tella et al. (2021), participants had to decide whether everyday tools were used toward or away from the body. Results showed faster responses when participants were presented with tools affording a TB action (e.g., a comb) rather than an AB action (e.g., a hammer) (see also van Elk, van Schie, & Bekkering, 2009, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Representational Processes of Actions Toward and Away from the Body

et al. 2022

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The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of mental representation processes during the planning, reaching, and use phases of actions with tools commonly used toward the body (TB, e.g., toothbrush) or away from the body (AB, e.g., pencil). In the first session, healthy participants were asked to perform TB (i.e., making circular movements with the toothbrush near the mouth) and AB (i.e., making circular movements with the pencil near the desk) actions both with (i.e., actual use) and without the tool in hand (i.e., the pantomime of tool use). In the second session, the same participants performed a series of mental rotation tasks involving body‐ (i.e., face and hands) and object‐related (i.e., abstract lines) stimuli. The temporal and kinematic analysis of the motor actions showed that the time required to start the pantomimes (i.e., the planning phase) was shorter for the AB action than for the TB action. In contrast, the reaching phase lasted longer for the AB action than for the TB action. Furthermore, the TB pantomime was associated with the performance in the mental rotation of body‐related stimuli, especially during the planning and reaching phases, whereas the AB pantomime was more related to the performance in the mental rotation of object‐related stimuli, especially during the tool use phase. Thus, the results revealed that the direction of a goal‐directed motor action influences the dynamics of the different phases of the motor action and can determine the type of mental images involved in the planning and execution of the action.

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Towards and away from the body: The relevance of the direction of use in the coding of object-related actions

Cited by 6 publications

References 31 publications

Pantomime of tool use: looking beyond apraxia

Pantomime of tool use: looking beyond apraxia

Do graspable objects always leave a motor signature? A study on memory traces

Representational Processes of Actions Toward and Away from the Body

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