Search

Based on literature identifying movement imagery, observation, and execution to elicit similar areas of neural activity, research has demonstrated that movement imagery and observation successfully prime movement execution. To investigate whether movement and observation could prime ease of imaging from an external visual-imagery perspective, an internal visual-imagery perspective, and kinesthetic modality, 36 participants (M age = 20.58; SD = 3.11; 18 women and 18 men) completed an adapted version of the Movement Imagery Questionnaire-Revised under four modes of delivery (movement prime, external observation prime, internal observation prime, and image-only). The results revealed that ease of imaging was significantly greater during the movement and observation prime conditions compared to the image-only condition (p < .05). Specifically when priming external visual imagery and internal visual imagery, observation facilitated ease of imaging only when the perspective was congruent with the imagery perspective. The results support the use of movement and observation to facilitate ease of imaging, but highlight the importance of considering the visual perspective when using observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the relations between attention and action in a patient with Balint's syndrome following bilateral damage involving the parietal lobes. The first two experiments used prolonged stimulus exposures and showed that unlike normals, the patient GK made independent actions to bilateral stimuli, even when explicitly instructed to make coordinated reaches. In contrast, bimanual actions to a single stimulus were coordinated in time. Experiments 3 and 4 employed reduced stimulus exposures to produce visual extinction. We found comparable extinction effects in detection and action, along with improved bimanual movements when the stimuli were grouped by collinearity and surface contrast, plus better coordination with bilateral stimuli proximity. The results are discussed in relation to the common role of visual selection processes in perception and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report two sets of data on object and action selection in a patient, ES, with an impaired ability to make task-based actions to objects. In simple action tasks, ES often made familiar actions to objects rather than the action appropriate to the task rule. We show that, despite having impaired selection of action, ES was able to select the target for action (based on salient perceptual differences). Relatively good object selection occurred even when the distractor had a stronger learned response than the target. In addition we show that distractors close to the path of action to a target can compete for, but are rejected from, selection along with any concurrently activated response. Suppression of an activated response improved performance, when the response would have been inappropriate to the task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assesses the manual interferences responses of direct action from a neuropsychological evidence. Determination of interference responses by stimulus familiarity and by spatial relations of the hand to the object; Effects of effectors and spatial uncertainty on interference responses.