Movements Of Others Research Articles

Whites Only: Race and Mobility in Kym Ragusa's The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging and Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric

Whites Only: Race and Mobility in Kym Ragusa's <i>The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging</i> and Claudia Rankine's <i>Citizen: An American Lyric</i>

RESTING STATE FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY CHANGES IN NATURALISTIC STIMULATION STUDY

Naturalistic stimulation has had increasing influence on cognitive neuroscience in the last decade. Several studies have used naturalistic stimulation to investigate the connectivity dynamics under pathological condition or in healthy children for studying the developing brain. However, little is known about the connectivity changes during watching a movie in healthy, adult population. Our aim is to delineate the potential dynamic connectivity pattern of the healthy, mature brain during naturalistic movie watching compared to complete rest. In an observational case series, e leven healthy adult volunteers with no history of psychiatric or neurological illness underwent two magnetic resonance echo-planar imaging acquisitions. During the first acquisition they were asked to rest with their eyes closed and during the subsequent acquisition they watched a movie clip with slow human body movements. The Independent Component Analysis provided neural components which were further submitted to intra- and inter-network analyses. We found significantly increased intra-network connectivity during movie watching for the extrastriate visual and for the posterior visual networks. The inter-network analysis showed that for the extravisual and primary visual pair, the connectivity was lower during movie watching compared to rest condition. We also found significant uncoupling between the anterior Default Mode Network and the secondary somatosensory network during movie watching. These findings suggest greater visual network segregation during movie watching in order to support processing of complex stimuli. The decoupling of the secondary somatosensory network from the anterior Default Mode Network during movie watching suggest a somatosensory function segregation and its important role in processing information from observing the naturalistic movements of others. Brain imaging measures of major brain networks can contribute to early identification of risk for common psychiatric disorders hence facilitating preventive therapy. Keywords: naturalistic stimulation , rest, conectivity Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Table Normal; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

Translating Race on the French Stage

Translating Race on the French Stage

A probabilistic evaluation of human activity space for proactive approach behavior of a social robot

Abstract Intelligent robot companions contribute significantly to improve the living standards of people in the modern society. Therefore, humanlike decision-making skills are sought after during the design of such robots. On the one hand, such features enable the robot to be easily handled by its human user. On the other hand, the robot will have the capability of dealing with humans without disturbing them by its behavior. Perception of Behavioral Ontology prior to an interaction is an important aspect in this regard. Furthermore, humans make an instant evaluation of task-related movements of others before approaching them. In this article, we present a mechanism to monitor how the activity space is utilized by a particular user on a temporal basis as an ontological assessment of the situation and then determine an appropriate approach behavior for a proactive robot to initiate an interaction with its user. This evaluation was then used to determine appropriate proxemic behavior to approach that person. The usage of activity space varies depending on the task of an individual. We used a probabilistic approach to find the areas that are the most and least likely to be occupied within the activity space of a particular individual during various tasks. As the robot approaches its subject after analyzing the spatial behavior of the subject within his/her activity space, spatial constraints occurred as a result of which robot’s movement could be demolished. Hence, a more socially acceptable spatial behavior could be observed from the robot. In other words, an etiquette based on approach behavior is derived considering the user’s activity space. Experiment results used to validate the system are presented, and critical observations during the study and implications are discussed.

Automatic Imitation in Comorbid PTSD & Alcohol Use Disorder and Controls: an RCT of Intranasal Oxytocin

IntroductionMimicking movements of others makes both the imitating and imitated partners feel closer. Oxytocin may increase focus on others and has been shown to increase automatic imitation in healthy controls (HC). However, this has not been replicated, and oxytocin’s effects on automatic imitation have not been demonstrated in clinical populations. This study attempts to replicate effects on HC and examine effects on people with comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorder (PTSD-AUD). MethodsFifty-four males with PTSD-AUD and 43 male HC received three intranasal treatment conditions (placebo, oxytocin 20 International Units (IU), and oxytocin 40 IU) in a randomized order, across three separate testing days, as part of a double-blind, crossover parent study. At 135 min post-administration, each performed the imitation-inhibition task, which quantifies automatic imitation as the congruency effect (CE). After exclusions, the final analyzed data set included 49 participants with PTSD-AUD and 38 HC. ResultsIn HC, oxytocin 20 IU demonstrated a statistically significant increase in CE, and 40 IU showed a trend-level increase. In PTSD-AUD, oxytocin did not significantly increase CE. Post-hoc analysis showed the PTSD-AUD group had higher CE than HC on placebo visits. DiscussionOur data suggest PTSD-AUD is associated with higher automatic imitation than HC in the absence of oxytocin administration. We successfully replicated findings that oxytocin increases automatic imitation in HC. This demonstrates an unconscious motor effect induced by oxytocin, likely relevant to more complex forms of imitative movements, which have the potential to improve social connection. We did not find a significant effect of oxytocin on automatic imitation in PTSD-AUD. Future research should examine imitation in both sexes, at peak oxytocin levels, and on increasingly complex forms of imitation.

Reducing facial dynamics' speed during speech enhances attention to mouth in children with autism spectrum disorder: An eye-tracking study.

Facial movements of others during verbal and social interaction are often too rapid to be faced and/or processed in time by numerous children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which could contribute to their face-to-face interaction peculiarities. We wish here to measure the effect of reducing the speed of one's facial dynamics on the visual exploration of the face by children with ASD. Twenty-three children with ASD and 29 typically-developing control children matched for chronological age passively viewed a video of a speaker telling a story at various velocities, i.e., a real-time speed and two slowed-down speeds. The visual scene was divided into four areas of interest (AOI): face, mouth, eyes, and outside the face. With an eye-tracking system, we measured the percentage of total fixation duration per AOI and the number and mean duration of the visual fixations made on each AOI. In children with ASD, the mean duration of visual fixations on the mouth region, which correlated with their verbal level, increased at slowed-down velocity compared with the real-time one, a finding which parallels a result also found in the control children. These findings strengthen the therapeutic potential of slowness for enhancing verbal and language abilities in children with ASD.

Musicians show greater cross-modal integration, intermodal integration, and specialization in working memory than non-musicians

Theories of working memory (WM) often distinguish between a central component and peripheral components for verbal and visual information. In the present study, we tested whether musicians differed from non-musicians on WM capacity and structure, with a particular focus on motor memory. We compared individuals with instrumental music training ( n = 91) to those without musical training ( n = 99) on seven WM tasks, measuring visual, verbal, and motor memory. The results showed that the musicians only rarely outperformed non-musicians on WM tasks. As for memory structure, a principal components analysis revealed that the seven tasks loaded onto different components for non-musicians and musicians. In musicians, scores loaded onto three components that represent motor–visual memory, verbal memory, and memory for the movements of others. In contrast, there were only two extracted components for non-musicians. These results suggest that music training leads to greater cross-modal and intermodal integration in WM, as well as specialization within motor memory.

Action perception recruits the cerebellum and is impaired in patients with spinocerebellar ataxia.

Our cerebellum has been proposed to generate prediction signals that may help us plan and execute our motor programmes. However, to what extent our cerebellum is also actively involved in perceiving the action of others remains to be elucidated. Using functional MRI, we show here that observing goal-directed hand actions of others bilaterally recruits lobules VI, VIIb and VIIIa in the cerebellar hemispheres. Moreover, whereas healthy subjects (n = 31) were found to be able to discriminate subtle differences in the kinematics of observed limb movements of others, patients suffering from spinocerebellar ataxia type 6 (SCA6; n = 21) were severely impaired in performing such tasks. Our data suggest that the human cerebellum is actively involved in perceiving the kinematics of the hand actions of others and that SCA6 patients' deficits include a difficulty in perceiving the actions of other individuals. This finding alerts us to the fact that cerebellar disorders can alter social cognition.

Differences between the Influence of Observing One's Own Movements and Those of Others in Patients with Stroke.

We aimed to investigate differences between the influence of observing one's own actions and those of others in patients with stroke with hemiplegia. Thirty-four patients with stroke who had experienced a right or left hemispheric lesion (RHL: n = 17; LHL: n = 17) participated in this study. Participants viewed video clips (0.5× speed) of their own stepping movements (SO) as well as those of others (OO). After viewing the video clips, participants were asked to evaluate the vividness of the mental image of the observed stepping movement using a five-point scale, in accordance with that utilized in the Kinesthetic and Visual Imagery Questionnaire (KVIQ). We also examined changes in imagery and execution times following action observation. When all patients were considered, there were no significant differences between SO and OO conditions. However, in the RHL subgroup, KVIQ kinesthetic subscore and changes in imagery and execution times were greater in the OO condition than in the SO condition. In the LHL subgroup, changes in imagery times were greater in the SO condition than in the OO condition. These findings indicated that viewing the movements of others led to more vivid imagery and alteration in performance in patients with right-sided stroke, when compared to viewing one's own movements. Therefore, the present study suggests that clinicians should consider the side of the damaged hemisphere when implementing action observation therapy for patients with stroke.

Visual perception of joint stiffness from multijoint motion.

Humans have an astonishing ability to extract hidden information from the movements of others. For example, even with limited kinematic information, humans can distinguish between biological and nonbiological motion, identify the age and gender of a human demonstrator, and recognize what action a human demonstrator is performing. It is unknown, however, whether they can also estimate hidden mechanical properties of another's limbs simply by observing their motions. Strictly speaking, identifying an object's mechanical properties, such as stiffness, requires contact. With only motion information, unambiguous measurements of stiffness are fundamentally impossible, since the same limb motion can be generated with an infinite number of stiffness values. However, we show that humans can readily estimate the stiffness of a simulated limb from its motion. In three experiments, we found that participants linearly increased their rating of arm stiffness as joint stiffness parameters in the arm controller increased. This was remarkable since there was no physical contact with the simulated limb. Moreover, participants had no explicit knowledge of how the simulated arm was controlled. To successfully map nontrivial changes in multijoint motion to changes in arm stiffness, participants likely drew on prior knowledge of human neuromotor control. Having an internal representation consistent with the behavior of the controller used to drive the simulated arm implies that this control policy competently captures key features of veridical biological control. Finding that humans can extract latent features of neuromotor control from kinematics also provides new insight into how humans interpret the motor actions of others. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Humans can visually perceive another's overt motion, but it is unknown whether they can also perceive the hidden dynamic properties of another's limbs from their motions. Here, we show that humans can correctly infer changes in limb stiffness from nontrivial changes in multijoint limb motion without force information or explicit knowledge of the underlying limb controller. Our findings suggest that humans presume others control motor behavior in such a way that limb stiffness influences motion.

The way others move can influence what we choose.

Whether pointing at a menu item or rifling through a clothes rack, when we choose we often move. We investigated whether people's tendency to copy the movements of others could influence their choices. Participants saw pairs of pictures in private and indicated which one they preferred. They then entered a virtual art gallery and saw the same picture pairs in the presence of a virtual character. Having observed the virtual character point to indicate her preference with either a high or low movement trajectory, participants indicated their preference. There was either an anatomical (same movement, same choice) or spatial correspondence (same movement, different choice) between the participant's pictures and those of the virtual character. We found that participants copied the movement made by the virtual character rather than her action goal (i.e., her choice of picture). This resulted in a shift towards the virtual character's preferences in the anatomical condition but away from her preferences in the spatial condition. This effect was driven by the observation of the virtual character's high pointing movements. In a further experiment, we did not find any significant differences in imitation behaviour in autism, although autistic participants were less consistent in their choices. Our findings demonstrate that we are not only influenced by other's choices but also the types of movements others make to indicate those choices.

Social eavesdropping allows for a more risky gliding strategy by thermal-soaring birds.

Vultures are thought to form networks in the sky, with individuals monitoring the movements of others to gain up-to-date information on resource availability. While it is recognized that social information facilitates the search for carrion, how this facilitates the search for updrafts, another critical resource, remains unknown. In theory, birds could use information on updraft availability to modulate their flight speed, increasing their airspeed when informed on updraft location. In addition, the stylized circling behaviour associated with thermal soaring is likely to provide social cues on updraft availability for any bird operating in the surrounding area. We equipped five Gyps vultures with GPS and airspeed loggers to quantify the movements of birds flying in the same airspace. Birds that were socially informed on updraft availability immediately adopted higher airspeeds on entering the inter-thermal glide; a strategy that would be risky if birds were relying on personal information alone. This was embedded within a broader pattern of a reduction in airspeed (approx. 3 m s-1) through the glide, likely reflecting the need for low speed to sense and turn into the next thermal. Overall, this demonstrates (i) the complexity of factors affecting speed selection over fine temporal scales and (ii) that Gyps vultures respond to social information on the occurrence of energy in the aerial environment, which may reduce uncertainty in their movement decisions.

Computational Feature Analysis of Body Movements Reveals Hierarchical Brain Organization.

Social species spend considerable time observing the body movements of others to understand their actions, predict their emotions, watch their games, or enjoy their dance movements. Given the important information obtained from body movements, we still know surprisingly little about the details of brain mechanisms underlying movement perception. In this fMRI study, we investigated the relations between movement features obtained from automated computational analyses of video clips and the corresponding brain activity. Our results show that low-level computational features map to specific brain areas related to early visual- and motion-sensitive regions, while mid-level computational features are related to dynamic aspects of posture encoded in occipital-temporal cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus and superior parietal lobe. Furthermore, behavioral features obtained from subjective ratings correlated with activity in higher action observation regions. Our computational feature-based analysis suggests that the neural mechanism of movement encoding is organized in the brain not so much by semantic categories than by feature statistics of the body movements.

Contribution of global and local biological motion information to speed perception and discrimination.

To respond to movements of others and understand the intention of others' actions, it is important to accurately extract motion information from body movements. Here, using original and spatially scrambled point-light biological motions in upright and inverted orientations, we investigated the effect of global and local biological motion information on speed perception and sensitivity. The speed discrimination task revealed that speed sensitivity was higher for the original than for scrambled stimuli (Experiment 1) and higher for upright than for inverted stimuli (Experiment 2). Perceived motion speed was slower for the original than for scrambled stimuli (Experiment 2), but regardless of the orientation of the display (Experiment 1). A subsequent experiment comparing different scrambled stimuli of the same actions showed that the higher speed discrimination sensitivity to upright stimuli was preserved even in the scrambled biological motions (Experiment 3). Taken together, our findings suggest that perception of the speed of biological movements emanates from both global and local biological motion signals.

The possibility of considering Physical Education as “Semantic Generation”

This study examined the possibility of regarding Physical Education as “Semantic Generation”. First, the educational theory of Yano was examined, in order to consider the concept of the body. And this study considers the advisable body in the Physical Education as “Semantic Generation”. Second, the special experience of the general physical movement (i.e. “melting into the world”: yokai taiken) was examined. It was argued that the sympathetic and interconnected relationship between one’s own body and that of another (intecorporéité) can give rise to a special experience (yokai taiken). The results of this examination were as follows: 1)Yano claimed that Physical Education was not a means of treating the activity of the body as an educational subject. The body is not a physiological or corporeal object. He considered the living body to have existential identity and that it interacted with the world, and that this type of existence was an essential experience for humans. The body that takes place the special peak experience is hoped in the Physical Education as “Semantic Generation”. 2) The general physical movement of the same body creates a special experience (“melting into the world”: yokai taiken). In the practice of general physical movements, the body schema synchronizes with the movements of others’ bodies. This body schema synchronization represents resonance, sympathy and interaction with the bodies of others: in other words, special experience. 3)The resonant and interactive relationship between an individual body and the bodies of others is known as “intecorporéité”. Behavior matching and interactional synchrony appear in this relationship. This matching and synchrony of bodies deepen interactive mutual understanding. The resonant and interactive movement of the body, for example, creates “the experience of connection by the body”, and this represents the special experience (yokai taiken). 4) Physical Education as “Semantic Generation” can aid in development of educational potential through nurture of the body that creates a special peak experience and resonance, as well as sympathy and interaction with the bodies of others. That is to say, Education in bodily experience of relations between a subject and an object (i.e. “intecorporéité”) is important.

Can newborn infants imitate?

For several decades, scientists have held that newborn human infants can imitate adult behaviors like mouth opening, tongue protruding, and finger movements. This has been difficult to explain. In particular, it is not clear how newborn infants could know enough about their own bodies and movements, and how these map onto the bodies and movements of others, to be able to match their own felt movements to the seen movements of others. Prominent theories posit the existence of inborn mechanisms that automatically link visual input from the movements of others to the infant's already existing motor programs to produce the same movements. Such mechanisms would be instances of the inheritance of specific knowledge. In this review, we explain how current data argue against the existence of an inborn mechanism for linking seen actions with programs for performing those actions. We then sketch an alternative, multicausal explanation for the gradual development of imitation across infancy and beyond. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1410. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1410 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Interaction takes two: Typical adults exhibit mind-blindness towards those with autism spectrum disorder.

Recent work suggests that we are better at interpreting the movements of others who move like us, and that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) move in a quantifiably different way from typical individuals. Therefore, "social impairments" exhibited by individuals with ASD may, at least in part, represent a failure by typical individuals to infer the correct mental states from the movements of those with ASD. To examine this possibility, individuals with ASD and typical adults manually directed 2 triangles to generate animations depicting mental state interactions. Kinematic analysis of the generated animations demonstrated that the participants with ASD moved atypically, specifically with increased jerk compared to the typical participants. In confirmation of our primary hypothesis, typical individuals were better able to identify the mental state portrayed in the animations produced by typical, relative to autistic, individuals. The participants with ASD did not show this "same group" advantage, demonstrating comparable performance for the 2 sets of animations. These findings have significant implications for clinical assessment and intervention in ASD, and potentially other populations with atypical movement. (PsycINFO Database Record

Functional Plasticity in Somatosensory Cortex Supports Motor Learning by Observing

An influential idea in neuroscience is that the sensory-motor system is activated when observing the actions of others [1, 2]. This idea has recently been extended to motor learning, in which observation results in sensory-motor plasticity and behavioral changes in both motor and somatosensory domains [3-9]. However, it is unclear how the brain maps visual information onto motor circuits for learning. Here we test the idea that the somatosensory system, and specifically primary somatosensory cortex (S1), plays a role in motor learning by observing. In experiment 1, we applied stimulation to the median nerve to occupy the somatosensory system with unrelated inputs while participants observed a tutor learning to reach in a force field. Stimulation disrupted motor learning by observing in a limb-specific manner. Stimulation delivered to the right arm (the same arm used by the tutor) disrupted learning, whereas left arm stimulation did not. This is consistent with the idea that a somatosensory representation of the observed effector must be available during observation for learning to occur. In experiment 2, we assessed S1 cortical processing before and after observation by measuring somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) associated with median nerve stimulation. SEP amplitudes increased only for participants who observed learning. Moreover, SEPs increased more for participants who exhibited greater motor learning following observation. Taken together, these findings support the idea that motor learning by observing relies on functional plasticity in S1. We propose that visual signals about the movements of others are mapped onto motor circuits for learning via the somatosensory system.

Editorial: Mental practice: clinical and experimental research in imagery and action observation

This editorial accompanies 18 articles as part of a Frontiers research topic. The aim of this research topic was to clarify the underlying mechanisms involved in mental practice of action, bringing together evidence from a range of disciplines including cognitive neuroscience, experimental neuropsychology, sport and movement science, clinical neuropsychology and clinical neurology. The need to clarify the underlying mechanisms of mental practice is a pressing one. Mental practice of action has been explored in sport psychology for several decades, with the aim to use mental practice to improve sport performance. However, following the discovery of the mirror neuron system (see for example, Rizzolatti and Craighero, 2004), the perspective of mental practice has changed to a rationale based on neuroscience and to research focussed on understanding the neural processes of mental practice. Evidence that the brain simulates action has resulted in a common understanding of “functional equivalence” (Jeannerod, 1994): the idea that the mental representation of an action or percept in the person's mind is the neural “equivalent” to the physical action or actual percept. This ability to mentally represent action using the motor system allows for action simulation, providing conscious mental rehearsal of movement (imagery), but also allows for a common percept when observing the movements of others. Finally, in recent years, the disciplines of clinical neuropsychology and neurology have begun to use mental rehearsal of action, or mental practice, to produce improvements normally attributed to practicing actual movements.

Neural regions discriminating contextual information as conveyed through the learned preferences of others.

The human brain consists of a network of regions that are engaged when one observes the movements of others. Observing unexpected movements, as defined by the context, often elicits greater activity, particularly in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). This implies that observers use contextual information to form expectations about an agent’s goal and subsequent movements. The current study sought to identify regions that support the formation of these context-dependent expectations, with the pSTS being one candidate, given the consistent contextual modulation of its activity. We presented participants with fictitious individuals who had emotion-dependent food preferences, and instructed participants to indicate which food they expected each individual to choose based on the individual’s current emotional state. Each individual’s preference and emotional state therefore created a context that informed the observer’s expectation of the individual’s choice. Multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) was used to assess if these different contexts could be discriminated in the pSTS and elsewhere in the brain. No evidence for context discrimination was found in the pSTS. Context discrimination was found instead a network of other brain regions including the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (amPFC), bilateral parietal cortex, left middle temporal gyrus (L MTG) and left anterior temporal lobe (L ATL), which have been previously associated with context processing, and semantic and memory retrieval. All together, these regions possibly support the formation of context-dependent expectations of an agent’s goal.