Perception-action Cycle Research Articles

The Calcium Wave Model of the Perception-Action Cycle: Evidence from Semantic Relevance in Memory Experiments

We present a general model of brain function (the calcium wave model), distinguishing three processing modes in the perception-action cycle. The model provides an interpretation of the data from experiments on semantic memory conducted by the authors.

Base on balls for the Chapman strategy: Reassessing Brouwer, Brenner, and Smeets (2002)

A true understanding of skilled behavior includes the identification of the information that underlies the perception–action cycle at work. Often, observers’ sensitivity to perceptual variables is established in laboratory-situated simulation-based psychophysical experiments. The observers’ sensitivity thus determined is then used to draw conclusions that will generalize the findings to natural behavior. Focusing on the example of running to catch fly balls, the present contribution takes the study of Brouwer, Brenner, and Smeets (Perception & Psychophysics 64:1160–1168, 2002) to illustrate how common assumptions in the steps from psychophysical experiments to natural behavior can result in ungrounded conclusions. These authors built an argument to reject the use of the Chapman strategy of zeroing out optical acceleration. For this argument, they determined the sensitivity of the visual system to acceleration, assuming that acceleration is detected as a velocity ratio. Next, they showed that catchers started running earlier than could be expected on the basis of sensitivity thresholds for this velocity ratio, concluding that running initiation could not have been based on optical acceleration. In the present study, we argue that important assumptions in the Brouwer et al. (Perception & Psychophysics 64:1160–1168, 2002) line of argument are incorrect. First, we show how the assumption of parabolic ball flight trajectories, although convenient, biased Brouwer et al.’s (Perception & Psychophysics 64:1160–1168, 2002) conclusion. Next, we present an experiment revealing that observers do not base their judgments of acceleration on the velocity ratio. Thus, we demonstrate that Brouwer et al.’s (Perception & Psychophysics 64:1160–1168, 2002) argument that optical acceleration cannot serve as the information for running to catch fly balls does not hold.

Why gamers don’t learn more: An ecological approach to games as learning environments

This article explores the argument that video games by their nature are good learning environments. By applying the ecological approach to perception and learning to gameplay, the article describes gaming as a perception–action cycle, i.e., an interplay between seeing and using affordances. This notion of how gameplay functions is then used in order to discuss different design features in games, and it is claimed that games can be designed so that players are able to discover and utilize affordances without always having to develop skills and knowledge. Compared to many other practices, gaming can be less demanding and not as complex, since progress can be built into the game system. Previous literature has suggested that the principles for learning that can be found in games could potentially inform educational practices. This article claims that progression in games does not necessarily imply learning, and that the unique ways in which game design facilitates progression might be rather unsuitable principles for learning.

Natural learning for a connected world: education, technology, and the human brain

Why do video games fascinate kids so much that they will spend hours pursuing a difficult skill? Why dont they apply this kind of intensity to their school work? In their most penetrating and important work in years, these two leaders in the field of brain-based education build a bridge to the future of education with a dynamic model of teaching that works for all grade levels and in all cultural and ethnic groups. The authors education model, the Guided Experience Approach, is based on the way that biologists see learning as a totally natural, continuous interaction between perception and action. Natural Learning for a Connected World provides a practical, step-by-step description and successful examples from practice of this perception action cycle so that we can finally provide the learning environments essential for our children to thrive in the knowledge age.

A cognitive systems framework to inform delivery of analytic support for farmers’ intuitive management under seasonal climatic variability

The idea of the decision support system (DSS) for farmers remains an enigma. Clever technology to bridge the gap between agricultural science and farming practice still seems appropriate. Many more of the conditions for success appear to exist today than ever before. Yet the DSS has yet to significantly colonise farm decision making practice. This paper comes late in a long program of research conducted to see if, and under what conditions, computer simulation of farming scenarios, on which a DSS generally depends, can be valued by farmers. The research approach used an unconventional prototypic information system (IS), comprising local measurements, models, and facilitated discussions that evolved in an action research program. The aim has been to elucidate the means by which successful simulation-based decision support intervention can take place and why it usually does not. This required a significant expansion of the researchers’ concept of the farm as a system to include the farmer’s internal system of practical knowing and learning. This paper reports on a cognitive framework model with transactions at interfaces with both the production system and the analytical IS. Its coarse structure is the classical perception–action cycle influenced by goals and outcome feedback. In the highly uncertain production environment of Australian dryland farming, personal judgement plays a significant mediating role between perception and action, and theory of a continuum between the judgement modes of intuition and analysis adds to framework structure. Further structure comes from the theoretical distinctions between holistic and arbitrary intuition, and between causal and probabilistic analysis. Analytic interventions influence: (a) awareness of current situation conditions and (b) expectations of future conditions and action outcomes, and these serve as primary cognitive resources for evaluation of possible actions in planning and decision making. A theory that matches our research experience in bridging the gap between analytic intervention and intuitive practice posits that virtual situations simulated with analytic models and outputs represented graphically can facilitate vicarious experiential learning. This dovetails with theory concerning the education of intuition. The paper concludes by applying criteria from the field of cognitive engineering to test whether the framework presents a concept of mind that is workable for informing practical model-based research and development aimed at supporting farmers’ judgments and decisions.

Cognitive Dynamic Systems

The main topics covered in this paper address the following four issues: 1) Distinction between how adaptation and cognition are viewed with respect to each other, 2) With human cognition viewed as the framework for cognition, the following cognitive processes are identified: the perception-action cycle, memory, attention, intelligence, and language. With language being outside the scope of the paper, detailed accounts of the other four cognitive processes are discussed, 3) Cognitive radar is singled out as an example application of cognitive dynamic systems that “mimics” the visual brain; experimental results on tracking are presented using simulations, which clearly demonstrate the information-processing power of cognition, and 4) Two other example applications of cognitive dynamic systems, namely, cognitive radio and cognitive control, are briefly described.

Vassilis Cutsuridis, Amir Hussain and John G. Taylor (eds): Perception–action cycle. Models, architectures, and hardware

Vassilis Cutsuridis, Amir Hussain and John G. Taylor (eds): Perception–action cycle. Models, architectures, and hardware

From Vision to Decision: The Role of Visual Attention in Elite Sports Performance

Elite sports performance fundamentally relies on a complex set of brain functions engaged once visual signals are relayed from the eye. In this review, we overview a series of these neural mechanisms-focusing specifically on the critical role of attention in sculpting the visual processing that takes place leading up to a decision. These brain functions are introduced within the theoretical concept of the 'Perception-Action Cycle.' Vision does not stop at the eye but requires a coordinated set of brain mechanisms called on to convert visual input into rapid decisions about action.

Incremental learning of Bayesian sensorimotor models: from low-level behaviours to large-scale structure of the environment

This paper concerns the incremental learning of hierarchies of representations of space in artificial or natural cognitive systems. We propose a mathematical formalism for defining space representations (Bayesian Maps) and modelling their interaction in hierarchies of representations (sensorimotor interaction operator). We illustrate our formalism with a robotic experiment. Starting from a model based on the proximity to obstacles, we learn a new one related to the direction of the light source. It provides new behaviours, like phototaxis and photophobia. We then combine these two maps so as to identify parts of the environment where the way the two modalities interact is recognisable. This classification is a basis for learning a higher level of abstraction map that describes the large-scale structure of the environment. In the final model, the perception–action cycle is modelled by a hierarchy of sensorimotor models of increasing time and space scales, which provide navigation strategies of increasing complexities.

Listening as Covert Performance

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a view of musical listening as an active, dynamic and interactive process. After briefly considering the historical valorization of listening as critical act within Western musical culture, the paper describes the cognitive processes of schematization that are involved in musical listening. The central role of active engagement with the auditory environment in eliciting emotional responses to music is then sketched out, and the scope and limits of the attentional and motoric processes involved in processes of entrainment – focal in the experience of musical time – are outlined. Neuroscientific evidence that suggests that music is best conceived in terms of a perception–action cycle is reviewed, and the paper concludes by proposing that music is best conceptualized – from a biological perspective – as a communicative medium that is optimal for the management of situations of social uncertainty.

When cognitive control is calibrated: Event‐related potential correlates of adapting to information‐processing conflict despite erroneous response preparation

To examine when in the perception-action cycle resolving information-processing conflict modulates signals of the current need for cognitive control, the present work examined event-related potential correlates of response preparation (lateralized readiness potentials; LRPs) and of information-processing conflict (fronto-central N2 responses) on trial n flanker trials, as a function of whether trial n-1 entailed a congruent flanker, an incongruent flanker, or a NoGo cue. Although LRP-indexed erroneous response preparation was substantial on incongruent trials across all levels of trial n-1, N2 amplitudes and behavioral interference effects were attenuated on incongruent trials following NoGo and incongruent (relative to congruent) trials. Even after initial attentional and motor-preparation processes have transpired, then, relatively later control mechanisms appear sufficient to signal a reduced need to engage cognitive control anew.

TOWARDS GRASP-ORIENTED VISUAL PERCEPTION FOR HUMANOID ROBOTS

A distinct property of robot vision systems is that they are embodied. Visual information is extracted for the purpose of moving in and interacting with the environment. Thus, different types of perception-action cycles need to be implemented and evaluated. In this paper, we study the problem of designing a vision system for the purpose of object grasping in everyday environments. This vision system is firstly targeted at the interaction with the world through recognition and grasping of objects and secondly at being an interface for the reasoning and planning module to the real world. The latter provides the vision system with a certain task that drives it and defines a specific context, i.e. search for or identify a certain object and analyze it for potential later manipulation. We deal with cases of: (i) known objects, (ii) objects similar to already known objects, and (iii) unknown objects. The perception-action cycle is connected to the reasoning system based on the idea of affordances. All three cases are also related to the state of the art and the terminology in the neuroscientific area.

Subjects and Objects: Metaphysics, Biology, Consciousness, and Cognition

Over the past half-century, the Freeman laboratory has accumulated a large volume of data and a correspondingly extensive interpretive framework centered around an alternative perspective on brain function, that of dynamical systems. The purpose of this paper is first briefly to summarise this work, and bring it into dialogue with other perspectives. The contents of consciousness are seen as an inevitably sparse sample of events in the perception–action cycle. The paper proceeds to an attempt to elucidate the contents of this sparse sample. A critical concept is that of selfhood, and how it presents itself phenomenologically. It is argued that our experience of selfhood is an artifact of the necessity of preservation of subject/object relations. As this part of metaphysics has been badly misunderstood, we scrutinise it at some length in quantum mechanics, biology, and cognition. It is argued that Pattee's approach, while valuable, tends to premature closure on these issues. The paper then proceeds to outline a view on how selfhood is best considered wrt the immune response. This is interrelated with phenomenology, and some data are adduced to support this central hypothesis. Finally, consequences for the social sciences in general are hinted at.

A coupled reaction-diffusion field model for perception-action cycle with applications to robot navigation

A generalised reaction-diffusion field model for robot navigation is proposed. It utilises two mutually antagonistic neural fields counteracting in patterns similar to that of flexor/extensor muscles controlling the movements in major joints in the human body. Combining local activation and generalised inhibition represented by Amari's neural field equations and extended by the Fitzhugh-Nagumo and Wilson-Cowan activator-inhibitor systems, results in the type of neural attractor dynamics that may lead to spontaneous oscillatory pattern formation. Preliminary simulation data suggest that this approach has utility in enabling a team of autonomous vehicles to navigate in a crowded pedestrian crossing.

Whether feeling or seeing is more accurate depends on tracking direction within the perception-action cycle

Coordination in biological systems requires a continuous updating of the perception-action cycle. How the different sources of sensory information contribute uniquely to performance is still debated. Here, we directly compared the role of vision and kinesthesis by means of a tracking task in which the left wrist mimicked the passive motions imposed on the right wrist with a torque motor. The passive movements were perceived visually (alien hand) or kinesthetically (own hand), or a combination thereof (own hand, feel and see). Tracking occurred according to the same (isodirectional) or opposite (mirror-image) directions. Findings revealed that visual tracking was performed most successfully in the isodirectional and kinesthetic tracking in the mirror-image mode. Tracking was most successful when both sources of sensory information were present. These results suggest that vision and proprioception obey direction-dependent constraints that are consistent with extrinsic and intrinsic reference frames within which the perception-action cycle resides. Thus, each sensory modality contributes uniquely as a function of the spatial requirements of the tracking task, rather than one being superior over the other.

Jackson and the frontal executive hierarchy

Executive actions are represented and hierarchically organized in the cortex of the frontal lobe. The representation and coordination of an action or series of actions have the same anatomical substrate: an executive neuronal network (cognit) in forntal cortex. That network interacts structurally and dynamically with perceptual networks of posterior cortex at the highest levels of the perception–action cycle.

The cognit: A network model of cortical representation

The prevalent concept in modular models is that there are discrete cortical domains dedicated more or less exclusively to such cognitive functions as visual discrimination, language, spatial attention, face recognition, motor programming, memory retrieval, and working memory. Most of these models have failed or languished for lack of conclusive evidence. In their stead, network models are emerging as more suitable and productive alternatives. Network models are predicated on the basic tenet that cognitive representations consist of widely distributed networks of cortical neurons. Cognitive functions, namely perception, attention, memory, language, and intelligence, consist of neural transactions within and between these networks. The present model postulates that memory and knowledge are represented by distributed, interactive, and overlapping networks of neurons in association cortex. Such networks, named cognits, constitute the basic units of memory or knowledge. The association cortex of posterior-post-rolandic-regions contains perceptual cognits: cognitive networks made of neurons associated by information acquired through the senses. Conversely, frontal association cortex contains executive cognits, made of neurons associated by information related to action. In both posterior and frontal cortex, cognits are hierarchically organized. At the bottom of that organization—that is, in parasensory and premotor cortex—cognits are small and relatively simple, representing simple percepts or motor acts. At the top of the organization—in temporo–parietal and prefrontal cortex—cognits are wider and represent complex and abstract information of perceptual or executive character. Posterior and frontal networks are associated by long reciprocal cortico–cortical connections. These connections support the dynamics of the perception–action cycle in sequential behavior, speech, and reasoning.

Upper processing stages of the perception–action cycle

The neural substrate for behavioral, cognitive and linguistic actions is hierarchically organized in the cortex of the frontal lobe. In their methodologically impeccable study, Koechlin et al. reveal the neural dynamics of the frontal hierarchy in behavioral action. Progressively higher areas control the performance of actions requiring the integration of progressively more complex and temporally dispersed information. The study substantiates the crucial role of the prefrontal cortex in the temporal organization of behavior.

Memory trace in prefrontal cortex: theory for the cognitive switch.

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in human and non-human primates functions as the highest-order executor for the perception-action cycle. According to this view, when perceptual stimuli from the environment are novel or complex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex serves to set consciously a goal-directed scheme which broadly determines an action repertory to meet the particular demand from the environment. In this respect, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is a short-term activation device with the properties of a cognitive switch', because it couples a particular set of perceptual stimuli to a particular set of actions. Here, I suggest that, in order for the organism to react systematically to the environment, neural traces for the switch function must be stored in the brain. Thus, the highest-order, perception-action interface function of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex per se depends on permanently stored neural traces in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and related structures. Such a memory system may be located functionally between two of the well-documented memory systems in the brain: the declarative memory system and the procedural memory system. Finally, based on available neurophysiological data, the possible mechanisms underlying the formation of cognitive switch traces are proposed.

Cortical and subcortical networks underlying syncopated and synchronized coordination revealed using fMRI. Functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Inherent differences in difficulty between on the beat (synchronization) and off the beat (syncopation) coordination modes are well known. Synchronization is typically quite easy and, once begun, may be carried out with little apparent attention demand. Syncopation tends to be difficult, even though it has been described as a simple, phase-shifted version of a synchronized pattern. We hypothesize that syncopation, unlike synchronization, is organized on a cycle-by-cycle basis, thereby imposing much greater preparatory and attentional demands on the central nervous system. To test this hypothesis we used fMRI to measure the BOLD response during syncopation and synchronization to an auditory stimulus. We found that the distribution of cortical and subcortical areas involved in intentionally coordinating movement with an external metronome depends on the timing pattern employed. Both synchronized and syncopated patterns require activation of contralateral sensorimotor and caudal supplementary motor cortices as well as the (primarily ipsilateral) cerebellum. Moving off the beat, however, requires not only additional activation of the cerebellum but also the recruitment of another network comprised of the basal ganglia, dorsolateral premotor, rostral supplementary motor, prefrontal, and temporal association cortices. No areas were found to be more active during synchronization than syncopation. The functional role of the cortical and subcortical regions areas involved in syncopation supports the hypothesis that whereas synchronization requires little preparation and monitoring, syncopated movements are planned and executed individually on each perception-action cycle.