Deriving Motor Primitives through Action Segmentation
The purpose of the present experiment is to further understand the effect of levels of processing (top-down vs. bottom-up) on the perception of movement kinematics and primitives for grasping actions in order to gain insight into possible primitives used by the mirror system. In the present study, w...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2011-01-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00243/full |
| _version_ | 1819036881175707648 |
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| author | Paul E. Hemeren Serge eThill |
| author_facet | Paul E. Hemeren Serge eThill |
| author_sort | Paul E. Hemeren |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The purpose of the present experiment is to further understand the effect of levels of processing (top-down vs. bottom-up) on the perception of movement kinematics and primitives for grasping actions in order to gain insight into possible primitives used by the mirror system. In the present study, we investigated the potential of identifying such primitives using an action segmentation task. Specifically, we investigated whether or not segmentation was driven primarily by the kinematics of the action, as opposed to high-level top-down information about the action and the object used in the action. Participants in the experiment were shown twelve point-light movies of object-centered hand/arm actions that were either presented in their canonical orientation together with the object in question or upside-down (inverted) without information about the object. The results show that (1) despite impaired high-level action recognition for the inverted actions participants were able to reliably segment the actions according to lower-level kinematic variables, (2) segmentation behavior in both groups was significantly related to the kinematic variables of change in direction, velocity and acceleration of the wrist (thumb and finger tips) for most of the included actions. This indicates that top-down activation of an action representation leads to similar segmentation behavior for hand/arm actions compared to bottom-up, or local, visual processing when performing a fairly unconstrained segmentation task. Motor primitives as parts of more complex actions may therefore be reliably derived through visual segmentation based on movement kinematics. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T08:12:34Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3a8c11b2600a46249ccd8a0dde9fffe9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T08:12:34Z |
| publishDate | 2011-01-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-3a8c11b2600a46249ccd8a0dde9fffe92022-12-21T19:10:37ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782011-01-01110.3389/fpsyg.2010.002437293Deriving Motor Primitives through Action SegmentationPaul E. Hemeren0Serge eThill1University of SkövdeUniversity of SkövdeThe purpose of the present experiment is to further understand the effect of levels of processing (top-down vs. bottom-up) on the perception of movement kinematics and primitives for grasping actions in order to gain insight into possible primitives used by the mirror system. In the present study, we investigated the potential of identifying such primitives using an action segmentation task. Specifically, we investigated whether or not segmentation was driven primarily by the kinematics of the action, as opposed to high-level top-down information about the action and the object used in the action. Participants in the experiment were shown twelve point-light movies of object-centered hand/arm actions that were either presented in their canonical orientation together with the object in question or upside-down (inverted) without information about the object. The results show that (1) despite impaired high-level action recognition for the inverted actions participants were able to reliably segment the actions according to lower-level kinematic variables, (2) segmentation behavior in both groups was significantly related to the kinematic variables of change in direction, velocity and acceleration of the wrist (thumb and finger tips) for most of the included actions. This indicates that top-down activation of an action representation leads to similar segmentation behavior for hand/arm actions compared to bottom-up, or local, visual processing when performing a fairly unconstrained segmentation task. Motor primitives as parts of more complex actions may therefore be reliably derived through visual segmentation based on movement kinematics.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00243/fullMirror NeuronsBiological motionMotor cognitionAction recognitionaction representationevent segmentation |
| spellingShingle | Paul E. Hemeren Serge eThill Deriving Motor Primitives through Action Segmentation Frontiers in Psychology Mirror Neurons Biological motion Motor cognition Action recognition action representation event segmentation |
| title | Deriving Motor Primitives through Action Segmentation |
| title_full | Deriving Motor Primitives through Action Segmentation |
| title_fullStr | Deriving Motor Primitives through Action Segmentation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Deriving Motor Primitives through Action Segmentation |
| title_short | Deriving Motor Primitives through Action Segmentation |
| title_sort | deriving motor primitives through action segmentation |
| topic | Mirror Neurons Biological motion Motor cognition Action recognition action representation event segmentation |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00243/full |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT paulehemeren derivingmotorprimitivesthroughactionsegmentation AT sergeethill derivingmotorprimitivesthroughactionsegmentation |