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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 12 point-light movies of object-centered hand/arm actions that were either presented in their canonical orientation together with the object in question (top-down condition) or upside down (inverted) without information about the object (bottom-up condition). 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.

No abstract

In the context of interactive and automated vehicles, driver situation awareness becomes an increasingly important consideration for future traffic systems, whether it concerns the current status of the vehicle or the surrounding environment. Here, we present a simulator study investigating whether the apparent intelligence -i.e. intelligence as perceived by the driver, which is distinct from how intelligent a designer might think the system is -of a vehicle is a factor in the expectations and behaviour of the driver. We are specifically interested in perceived intelligence as a factor in situation awareness. To this end, the study modulates both traffic conditions and the type of navigational assistance given in a goal-navigation task to influence participant's perception of the system.Our result show two distinct effects relevant to situation awareness: 1) Participants who think the vehicle is highly intelligent spend more time glancing at the surrounding environment through the left door window than those who rank intelligence low and 2) participants prefer an awareness of why the navigation aid decided for specific directions but are sensitive to the manner it is presented. Our results have broader implications for the design of future automated systems in vehicles.

No abstract