Anticipating Action Effects with Different Attention Foci is Reflected in Brain Activation

Abstract

Anticipation is informed by experience. Having focused on action effects in the past will lead to differences when the focus is now on the effector. Boules-type throwing movements were presented as point-light displays of shoulder and arm-markers. Activation in motor-related areas measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging was compared between two tasks: Task A anticipating action effects and Task B judging the velocity of the hand marker. One group of participants performed a session of Task A followed by a session of Task B; the other group started with Task B followed by Task A. The group starting with Task A exhibited higher brain activation during Task A bilaterally in intraparietal areas and in right hemispheric frontal and premotor areas. These areas are known to be involved in effect estimation and action simulation. The second group showed higher activation during Task B in premotor cortex and human intraparietal area 3 of the right hemisphere. The results suggest that the instruction to focus on anticipating action effects facilitates the recruitment of core components of the simulation network during anticipation and when effect anticipation is not the primary intention.

Soccer athletes are superior to non-athletes at perceiving soccer-specific and non-sport specific human biological motion

“…One potential mechanism given for the process of anticipation is that the observer simulates the observed actions by using a predictive forward simulation which estimates the sensory effects of a movement. The prediction is suggested to be based on one’s movement experience and/or the observer’s own motor representations (see Bischoff et al, 2015 ). In a recent fMRI study, Bischoff and colleagues identified the core components of the anticipation network throughout an anticipatory task of boules’ throw ( Bischoff et al, 2015 ).…”

Motor-Evoked Potentials in the Lower Back Are Modulated by Visual Perception of Lifted Weight

“…In social interactions, humans demonstrate a remarkable ability to effortlessly understand and interpret the behavior and intention of others. With regard to this topic, it has been found that within this process the visual perception of human movements activates a complex cortical network that involves visual processing regions [ 1 – 3 ] as well as motor intention [ 4 , 5 ] or motor and somatosensory representations in the brain [ 6 – 13 ] which belong to the so-called mirror neuron system [ 14 ]. Direct electrophysiological recordings in monkeys [ 15 – 18 ] and humans [ 19 ] have shown a discharge in such mirror neurons during execution and perception of actions.…”