Reaching to grasp cognition: analyzing motor behaviour to investigate social interactions

Editorial

14 August 2018

Editorial: Reaching to Grasp Cognition: Analyzing Motor Behavior to Investigate Social Interactions

Claudia Gianelli

and

Maurizio Gentilucci

1,849 views

0 citations

Editors

Claudia Gianelli

University of Messina

Maurizio Gentilucci

University of Parma

Impact

Original Research

07 February 2017

Grasping the Agent’s Perspective: A Kinematics Investigation of Linguistic Perspective in Italian and German

Claudia Gianelli

, 1 more and

Anna M. Borghi

3,181 views

6 citations

Sensitivity (A) and criterion (B) for the intention classification question.

Methods

17 November 2015

The Multilingual CID-5: A New Tool to Study the Perception of Communicative Interactions in Different Languages

Valeria Manera

, 12 more and

Cristina Becchio

5,578 views

16 citations

Parameters of grasp (grasp time, time to maximal finger aperture, peak velocity of finger opening, time to peak velocity of finger opening, maximal finger aperture which were significant on Mixed-design ANOVAs. The within-subjects factor was type of scene (cooperation vs. competition) and the between-subjects factor was participants’ attitude (cooperative vs. competitive). Vertical bars are SE.

Original Research

28 October 2015

Factors affecting athletes’ motor behavior after the observation of scenes of cooperation and competition in competitive sport: the effect of sport attitude

Elisa De Stefani

, 1 more and

Maurizio Gentilucci

7,865 views

9 citations

Original Research

17 August 2015

Individual differences in reading social intentions from motor deviants

Daniel Lewkowicz

, 2 more and

Yvonne N. Delevoye-Turrell

(A) A typical example of the video stimuli that was used both in Experiments 1 and 2 to test the role of motor deviants for the categorization of social and personal object-centered actions. One can note the neutral context that was used with the placement of 3D reflexive markers that provided us the means to verify the kinematic deviants between social and personal movements during the validation phase of the video database. (B) Velocity curves of the corresponding trial illustrating the double bell shaped profiles that are observed in the present reach to grasp task. Reaction times (RT in ms) and movement times of the first element of the sequence (MT of reach in ms) may have been used by the observers to dissociate social from personal actions.

As social animals, it is crucial to understand others’ intention. But is it possible to detect social intention in two actions that have the exact same motor goal? In the present study, we presented participants with video clips of an individual reaching for and grasping an object to either use it (personal trial) or to give his partner the opportunity to use it (social trial). In Experiment 1, the ability of naïve participants to classify correctly social trials through simple observation of short video clips was tested. In addition, detection levels were analyzed as a function of individual scores in psychological questionnaires of motor imagery, visual imagery, and social cognition. Results revealed that the between-participant heterogeneity in the ability to distinguish social from personal actions was predicted by the social skill abilities. A second experiment was then conducted to assess what predictive mechanism could contribute to the detection of social intention. Video clips were sliced and normalized to control for either the reaction times (RTs) or/and the movement times (MTs) of the grasping action. Tested in a second group of participants, results showed that the detection of social intention relies on the variation of both RT and MT that are implicitly perceived in the grasping action. The ability to use implicitly these motor deviants for action-outcome understanding would be the key to intuitive social interaction.

5,592 views

24 citations

Example frames from a stimulus video with the small button near the edge of the table and the hand moving to the large button.

Original Research

04 August 2015

Fifteen-month-old infants use velocity information to predict others’ action targets

Janny C. Stapel

, 1 more and

Harold Bekkering

3,479 views

16 citations

The figure illustrates how a joint-grasping set-up allows for investigating the hierarchical structure of motor planning which characterizes joint action (JA). It represents the JA experimental condition described in the main text. Here, each agent’s sub-goal (i.e., grasping the bottle-shaped object at the correct location) depends on the couple’s shared goal (i.e., grasping the object synchronously and performing a complementary/imitative action, please note in this case a complementary action is shown). Namely, co-agents select the to be grasped object-part according to the shared goal, and perform mutual adjustments in order to fulfill it. Then, the correct movement (i.e., the recruitment of motor synergies to perform a precision/power grip) is selected according to the to be performed sub-goal; however, observing these motor synergies in the partner is a cue in itself, which allows co-agents to predict the partner’s sub-goal and adjust their own movements accordingly.

Perspective

30 July 2015

Social cues to joint actions: the role of shared goals

Lucia M. Sacheli

, 1 more and

Matteo Candidi

8,717 views

49 citations

Goal and intention encoding in areas F5 and PFG. (A) Upper part, left: lateral view of the monkey brain showing the location of area F5; right and lower part: discharge of an F5 neuron active during grasping with the mouth, the right hand and the left hand. Raster and histograms are aligned with the moment in which the monkey touches the target object. Abscissae: time; ordinates: spikes per bin; bin width: 20 ms. Modified from Rizzolatti et al. (1988). (B) Example of an F5 neuron discharging during grasping with normal and reverse pliers. Upper part: pliers and hand movements necessary for grasping with the two types of pliers. Lower part: rasters and histograms of the neuronal discharge during grasping with pliers. The alignments are with the end of the grasping closure phase (asterisks). The traces below each histogram indicate the hand position, recorded with a potentiometer, expressed as function of the distance between the pliers handles. When the trace goes down, the hand closes, when it goes up, it opens. The values on the vertical axes indicate the voltage change measured with the potentiometer. Other conventions as in (A). Modified from Umiltá et al. (2008). (C) Example of motor neuron of area PFG modulated by action intention. Upper part left: lateral view of the monkey brain showing the location of area PFG. Upper part right: paradigm used for the motor task. The monkey, starting from a fixed position, reaches and grasps a piece of food or an object, then it brings the food to the mouth and eats it (I, grasp-to-eat), or places it into a container (II/III, grasp-to-place). Lower part left: activity of three IPL neurons during grasping in the two actions. Rasters and histograms are aligned with the moment when the monkey touched the object to be grasped. Red bars: monkey releases the hand from the starting position. Green bars: monkey touches the container. Conventions as in (A). Modified from Fogassi et al. (2005).

Review

14 July 2015

Grasping actions and social interaction: neural bases and anatomical circuitry in the monkey

Stefano Rozzi

and

Gino Coudé

7,635 views

12 citations

Original Research

11 June 2015

Motor interference in interactive contexts

Eris Chinellato

, 1 more and

Luisa Sartori

3,566 views

10 citations

Sequence of events in a trial. The VC completes a sequence of action. A number cue appears on the “virtual ipad” in front of the VC. The participant taps each drum in the sequence as fast as possible. The participant receives feedback on correct/erroneous sequences. Note that at all points except the VC animation, the VC's head and gaze track the participant's head to give a feeling of actively being watched.

Methods

09 June 2015

Automatic imitation in a rich social context with virtual characters

Xueni Pan

and

Antonia F. de C. Hamilton

10,727 views

25 citations

Mean absolute maximum r-value (colorbar = 0:1 r), (A) face-to-face & simple, (B) face-to-face & complex, (C) video & simple, (D) video & complex; x and y axes represent actor and imitator trackers within their degrees of freedom (head, shoulder, elbow, wrist, thumb, index finger, little finger, in x, y, z, azimuth, elevation, and roll): 1 = x, 2 = y, 3 = z, 4 = azimuth, 5 = elevation, 6 = roll.

Original Research

19 May 2015

Video stimuli reduce object-directed imitation accuracy: a novel two-person motion-tracking approach

Arran T. Reader

and

Nicholas P. Holmes

4,759 views

9 citations

Original Research

05 May 2015

Different but complementary roles of action and gaze in action observation priming: Insights from eye- and motion-tracking measures

Clément Letesson

, 1 more and

Martin G. Edwards

4,447 views

6 citations

Neuroimaging studies of complementary actions. A number of studies have suggested that the right IFG (A) is not only involved when we respond to the actions of others by doing the same as they do (imitation) but also when responding with complementary actions (Newman-Norlund et al., 2007a,b, 2008; Ocampo et al., 2011; Shibata et al., 2011). In contrast, others hypothesize that the flexibility required during complementary actions requires a large network (B) including the IFG, IPL, superior parietal lobule (SPL), precentral gyrus, basal ganglia, middle and temporal occipital gyri, and cerebellum to be involved in integrating one’s own actions to those of others (Kokal et al., 2009; Kokal and Keysers, 2010).

Mini Review

01 May 2015

Complementary actions

Luisa Sartori

and

Sonia Betti

Complementary colors are color pairs which, when combined in the right proportions, produce white or black. Complementary actions refer here to forms of social interaction wherein individuals adapt their joint actions according to a common aim. Notably, complementary actions are incongruent actions. But being incongruent is not sufficient to be complementary (i.e., to complete the action of another person). Successful complementary interactions are founded on the abilities: (i) to simulate another person’s movements, (ii) to predict another person’s future action/s, (iii) to produce an appropriate incongruent response which differ, while interacting, with observed ones, and (iv) to complete the social interaction by integrating the predicted effects of one’s own action with those of another person. This definition clearly alludes to the functional importance of complementary actions in the perception–action cycle and prompts us to scrutinize what is taking place behind the scenes. Preliminary data on this topic have been provided by recent cutting-edge studies utilizing different research methods. This mini-review aims to provide an up-to-date overview of the processes and the specific activations underlying complementary actions.

7,700 views

37 citations