MOTOR ACTION

2018 ◽  
pp. 37-56
Keyword(s):  
Motor Action

Reaction Time and Brain Waves in Omitted Stimulus Tasks

2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar H. Hernández ◽  
Muriel Vogel-Sprott
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Young Male ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Auditory Stimuli ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Cognitive Component ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Somatosensory Stimuli

A missing stimulus task requires an immediate response to the omission of a regular recurrent stimulus. The task evokes a subclass of event-related potential known as omitted stimulus potential (OSP), which reflects some cognitive processes such as expectancy. The behavioral response to a missing stimulus is referred to as omitted stimulus reaction time (RT). This total RT measure is known to include cognitive and motor components. The cognitive component (premotor RT) is measured by the time from the missing stimulus until the onset of motor action. The motor RT component is measured by the time from the onset of muscle action until the completion of the response. Previous research showed that RT is faster to auditory than to visual stimuli, and that the premotor of RT to a missing auditory stimulus is correlated with the duration of an OSP. Although this observation suggests that similar cognitive processes might underlie these two measures, no research has tested this possibility. If similar cognitive processes are involved in the premotor RT and OSP duration, these two measures should be correlated in visual and somatosensory modalities, and the premotor RT to missing auditory stimuli should be fastest. This hypothesis was tested in 17 young male volunteers who performed a missing stimulus task, who were presented with trains of auditory, visual, and somatosensory stimuli and the OSP and RT measures were recorded. The results showed that premotor RT and OSP duration were consistently related, and that both measures were shorter with respect to auditory stimuli than to visual or somatosensory stimuli. This provides the first evidence that the premotor RT is related to an attribute of the OSP in all three sensory modalities.

Extended Emulation Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Rade
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
External Input ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
Thought Patterns ◽  
Stored Information ◽  
Short Term Prediction ◽  
The Mind

Emulators are internal models, first evolved for prediction in perception to shorten the feedback on motor action. However, the selective pressure on perception is to improve the fitness of decision-making, driving the evolution of emulators towards context-dependent payoff representation and integration of action planning, not enhanced prediction as is generally assumed. The result is integrated perceptual, memory, representational, and imaginative capacities processing external input and stored internal input for decision-making, while simultaneously updating stored information. Perception, recall, imagination, theory of mind, and dreaming are the same process with different inputs. Learning proceeds via scaffolding on existing conceptual infrastructure, a weak form of embodied cognition. Discrete concepts are emergent from continuous dynamics and are in a perceptual, not representational, format. Language is also in perceptual format and enables precise abstract thought. In sum, what was initially a primitive system for short-term prediction in perception has evolved to perform abstract thought, store and retrieve memory, understand others, hold embedded action plans, build stable narratives, simulate scenarios, and integrate context dependence into perception. Crucially, emulators co-evolved with the emergence of societies, producing a mind-society system in which emulators are dysfunctional unless integrated into a society, which enables their complexity. The Target Emulator System, evolved initially for honest signaling, produces the emergent dynamics of the mind-society system and spreads variation-testing of behavior and thought patterns across a population. The human brain is the most dysfunctional in isolation, but the most effective given its context.

scholarly journals From Conflict to Socio-Emotional Well-Being. Application of the GIAM Model through Traditional Sporting Games

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7263
Author(s):  
Aaron Rillo-Albert ◽  
Unai Sáez de Sáez de Ocáriz ◽  
Antoni Costes ◽  
Pere Lavega-Burgués
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Emotional Regulation ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
School Students ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Pedagogical Intervention ◽  
Validated Questionnaires ◽  
Associative Strategy

The education of pleasant interpersonal relationships is one of the great challenges of modern physical education. Learning to live together sustainably is also learning to transform conflicts and the negative emotions elicited by them. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the GIAM pedagogical model (of the Motor Action Research Group) through cooperation-opposition traditional sporting games with competition in the presence of motor conflicts (conflict transformation; relational well-being) and on emotional regulation (management of negative emotions; emotional well-being). Empirical research was carried out using an associative strategy (explanatory study) involving 222 secondary school students (Mage = 14.86; SD = 0.65). A seven-session pedagogical intervention was carried out based on a championship using the Marro (Prisoner’s Bar) game. The students answered two validated questionnaires of socio-emotional well-being, the Games and Emotions Scale (GES-II) and the Motor Conflict Questionnaire (MCQ), at three phases during the experience (beginning, middle, and end). The findings showed that, through the GIAM model, motor conflicts and the intensity of negative emotions were reduced. It was found that conflicts and negative emotions are part of the same phenomenon and that through an appropriate pedagogical program it is possible to turn them into experiences of socio-emotional well-being.

scholarly journals Studying the sense of agency in the absence of motor movement: an investigation into temporal binding of tactile sensations and auditory effects

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Antusch ◽  
R. Custers ◽  
H. Marien ◽  
H. Aarts
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Tactile Sensation ◽  
Temporal Binding ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Motor Movement ◽  
Sensory Effects ◽  
Motor Movements ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Tactile Sensations ◽  
Intentional Movement

AbstractPeople form coherent representations of goal-directed actions. Such agency experiences of intentional action are reflected by a shift in temporal perception: self-generated motor movements and subsequent sensory effects are perceived to occur closer together in time—a phenomenon termed intentional binding. Building on recent research suggesting that temporal binding occurs without intentionally performing actions, we further examined whether such perceptual compression occurs when motor action is fully absent. In three experiments, we used a novel sensory-based adaptation of the Libet clock paradigm to assess how a brief tactile sensation on the index finger and a resulting auditory stimulus perceptually bind together in time. Findings revealed robust temporal repulsion (instead of binding) between tactile sensation and auditory effect. Temporal repulsion was attenuated when participants could anticipate the identity and temporal onset (two crucial components of intentional action) of the tactile sensation. These findings are briefly discussed in the context of differences between intentional movement and anticipated bodily sensations in shaping action coherence and agentic experiences.

scholarly journals Neurophysiological changes in the visuomotor network after practicing a motor task

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Gehringer ◽  
David J. Arpin ◽  
Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham ◽  
Tony W. Wilson ◽  
Max J. Kurz
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Motor Planning ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Force Production ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Force Output ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Visuomotor Transformations ◽  
Target Matching

Although it is well appreciated that practicing a motor task updates the associated internal model, it is still unknown how the cortical oscillations linked with the motor action change with practice. The present study investigates the short-term changes (e.g., fast motor learning) in the α- and β-event-related desynchronizations (ERD) associated with the production of a motor action. To this end, we used magnetoencephalography to identify changes in the α- and β-ERD in healthy adults after participants practiced a novel isometric ankle plantarflexion target-matching task. After practicing, the participants matched the targets faster and had improved accuracy, faster force production, and a reduced amount of variability in the force output when trying to match the target. Parallel with the behavioral results, the strength of the β-ERD across the motor-planning and execution stages was reduced after practice in the sensorimotor and occipital cortexes. No pre/postpractice changes were found in the α-ERD during motor planning or execution. Together, these outcomes suggest that fast motor learning is associated with a decrease in β-ERD power. The decreased strength likely reflects a more refined motor plan, a reduction in neural resources needed to perform the task, and/or an enhancement of the processes that are involved in the visuomotor transformations that occur before the onset of the motor action. These results may augment the development of neurologically based practice strategies and/or lead to new practice strategies that increase motor learning. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We aimed to determine the effects of practice on the movement-related cortical oscillatory activity. Following practice, we found that the performance of the ankle plantarflexion target-matching task improved and the power of the β-oscillations decreased in the sensorimotor and occipital cortexes. These novel findings capture the β-oscillatory activity changes in the sensorimotor and occipital cortexes that are coupled with behavioral changes to demonstrate the effects of motor learning.

scholarly journals The secreto-motor effects in the cat's foot studied by the electrometer.

1904 ◽  
Vol 73 (488-496) ◽  
pp. 92-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustus Desire Waller
Keyword(s):  
Sciatic Nerve ◽  
Single Stimulus ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Voluntary Muscle ◽  
Previous Communication ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Single Response ◽  
Motor Effects

In a previous communication it was stated that the electrical signs a of secreto-motor action by tetanisation of the sciatic nerve are a demonstrable in the pads of a cat’s foot after death, best so during; the second half-hour after death, when the action of the nerve upon muscles of the limb has ceased. The subsequent study of these effects, by means of electrometer records, has brought out with great distinctness the chief classical events with which we are familiar in the case of the contraction of voluntary muscle, viz., the latency and course of a single response to a single stimulus, the super-position of two or more responses and the composition of tetanus, summation of stimuli, fatigue and recovery, and the staircase phenomenon. The difference between the muscular and the secreto-motor series of phenomena is principally a difference of time, the former being about 100 times more rapid than the latter.

Background Synaptic Activity as a Switch Between Dynamical States in a Network

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. 1439-1475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilio Salinas
Keyword(s):  
Random Network ◽  
Red Light ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Reciprocal Inhibition ◽  
Synaptic Activity ◽  
Dynamic State ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Sustained Activity ◽  
Uniform Background ◽  
Background Input

A bright red light may trigger a sudden motor action in a driver crossing an intersection: stepping at once on the brakes. The same red light, however, may be entirely inconsequential if it appears, say, inside a movie theater. Clearly, context determines whether a particular stimulus will trigger a motor response, but what is the neural correlate of this? How does the nervous system enable or disable whole networks so that they are responsive or not to a given sensory signal? Using theoretical models and computer simulations, I show that networks of neurons have a built-in capacity to switch between two types of dynamic state: one in which activity is low and approximately equal for all units, and another in which different activity distributions are possible and may even change dynamically. This property allows whole circuits to be turned on or off by weak, unstructured inputs. These results are illustrated using networks of integrate-and-fire neurons with diverse architectures. In agreement with the analytic calculations, a uniform background input may determine whether a random network has one or two stable firing levels; it may give rise to randomly alternating firing episodes in a circuit with reciprocal inhibition; and it may regulate the capacity of a center-surround circuit to produce either self-sustained activity or traveling waves. Thus, the functional properties of a network may be drastically modified by a simple, weak signal. This mechanism works as long as the network is able to exhibit stable firing states, or attractors.

Limb and hemispatial hypometria

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIMFORD J. MEADOR ◽  
EUGENE E. MOORE ◽  
ROY C. MARTIN ◽  
DAVID W. LORING ◽  
DAVID C. HESS ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Input ◽  
Target Point ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Cerebral Lesions ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Eyes Closed ◽  
Perceptual Systems ◽  
Horizontal Displacements ◽  
Origin Point

In a previous study, we demonstrated that unilateral cerebral lesions produce hypometric limb movements of the contralateral arm and hemispatial (i.e., directional) hypometria for movements towards contralateral hemispace. In the present study, we investigated 10 patients with right cerebral lesions and 25 healthy controls using a task to uncouple deficits in sensory perceptual systems and motor-action output systems on directional hypometria. This task required participants, with their eyes closed, to reproduce lateral and medial horizontal displacements (15–27 cm) with each arm. Each participant was seated at a waist high table and had their hand placed at an origin point aligned with the axillary fold on the same side. Their hand was moved by the investigator from the origin point to a target point and brought back to the point of origin (input displacement). The participant was then asked to return their hand to either the same target point or to an equidistant target point in the opposite direction. Healthy dextral participants were significantly more hypometric with their right arm, but patients with right cerebral lesions exhibited an opposite pattern with overall left arm hypometria. In addition, patients were significantly more hypometric for movements when output displacements were toward left hemispace. No effect was found for direction of sensory input. The results suggest that the directional hypometria is predominantly produced by hemispatial output deficits. (JINS, 2000, 6, 71–75.)

scholarly journals Human language evolution: a view from theoretical linguistics on how syntax and the lexicon first came into being

Primates ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haruka Fujita ◽  
Koji Fujita
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Gradual Evolution ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Evolutionary Continuity

AbstractHuman language is a multi-componential function comprising several sub-functions each of which may have evolved in other species independently of language. Among them, two sub-functions, or modules, have been claimed to be truly unique to the humans, namely hierarchical syntax (known as “Merge” in linguistics) and the “lexicon.” This kind of species-specificity stands as a hindrance to our natural understanding of human language evolution. Here we challenge this issue and advance our hypotheses on how human syntax and lexicon may have evolved from pre-existing cognitive capacities in our ancestors and other species including but not limited to nonhuman primates. Specifically, we argue that Merge evolved from motor action planning, and that the human lexicon with the distinction between lexical and functional categories evolved from its predecessors found in animal cognition through a process we call “disintegration.” We build our arguments on recent developments in generative grammar but crucially depart from some of its core ideas by borrowing insights from other relevant disciplines. Most importantly, we maintain that every sub-function of human language keeps evolutionary continuity with other species’ cognitive capacities and reject a saltational emergence of language in favor of its gradual evolution. By doing so, we aim to offer a firm theoretical background on which a promising scenario of language evolution can be constructed.

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