Abstract
Recent behavioural evidence suggests that when processing others’ actions, motor acts and goal-related 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.
Highlights
Understanding the actions performed by others is a core ability of human beings[1,2]
Actions could be typical or not according to the typical use of the object by the introduction of grip violations, goal violations, or, both grip and goal violations
We expected the integration between goal and grip dimensions to be visible on late Event Related Potential (ERP) components (e.g., N300, N400), as the processing of incongruencies between different action dimensions has been especially detected at such timing[24,31,33,37]
Summary
Understanding the actions performed by others is a core ability of human beings[1,2]. 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) It is unclear whether N300 modulations reflect the effect of grip-congruency (related to the static motor act component), or the impossibility to use the object for its typical function (related to the action goal). The cognitive mechanisms underlying the modulations of the aforementioned ERPs unlikely reflect the initial stages of action processing They have been related to the access to manipulation knowledge (i.e., related to the grip configuration) and functional knowledge (i.e., related to the action goal) relevant to the use of the object (e.g., the N300 component33) or associated to the integration of the two action dimensions (e.g., the N400 component[30]). We wanted to evaluate whether differences in the action photographs in terms of grip or goal visual information would be detected on earlier ERP components
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