Evidence for a dyadic motor plan in joint action

Sacheli, Lucia Maria; Arcangeli, Elisa; Paulesu, Eraldo

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-23275-9

Cited by 59 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Furthermore, the analysis of temporal delays between neural activity and the behavioral parameters, measured for the own and the other actions, showed that the time lags were mostly negatives for both canonical action-related and joint-action cell populations, supporting the view of a corepresentation of the two behaviors based on feedforward processes. This agrees with the dyadic motor plan view of Sacheli et al (2018), which demonstrates how a successful joint-performance relies on the active prediction of the partner's action, rather than on its passive imitation or observation. Our data offer an experimental evidence for a single-unit mechanism subtending intersubject motor coordination, which is reminiscent of a predictive coding (Rao and Ballard, 1999;Friston, 2005), proposed in humans to automatically anticipate others' mental states (Thornton et al, 2019).…”

Section: Joint-action Cells In Primate Premotor Cortexsupporting

confidence: 86%

Two brains in action: Joint-action coding in the primate frontal cortex

2019

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Daily life often requires the coordination of our actions with those of another partner. After 50 years (1968 -2018) of behavioral neurophysiology of motor control, the neural mechanisms that allow such coordination in primates are unknown. We studied this issue by recording cell activity simultaneously from dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) of two male interacting monkeys trained to coordinate their hand forces to achieve a common goal. We found a population of "joint-action cells" that discharged preferentially when monkeys cooperated in the task. This modulation was predictive in nature, because in most cells neural activity led in time the changes of the "own" and of the "other" behavior. These neurons encoded the joint-performance more accurately than "canonical action-related cells", activated by the action per se, regardless of the individual versus interactive context. A decoding of joint-action was obtained by combining the two brains' activities, using cells with directional properties distinguished from those associated to the "solo" behaviors. Action observation-related activity studied when one monkey observed the consequences of the partner's behavior, i.e., the cursor's motion on the screen, did not sharpen the accuracy of joint-action cells' representation, suggesting that it plays no major role in encoding joint-action. When monkeys performed with a non-interactive partner, such as a computer, joint-action cells' representation of the other (non-cooperative) behavior was significantly degraded. These findings provide evidence of how premotor neurons integrate the timevarying representation of the self-action with that of a co-actor, thus offering a neural substrate for successful visuomotor coordination between individuals.The neural bases of intersubject motor coordination were studied by recording cell activity simultaneously from the frontal cortex of two interacting monkeys, trained to coordinate their hand forces to achieve a common goal. We found a new class of cells, preferentially active when the monkeys cooperated, rather than when the same action was performed individually. These "jointaction neurons" offered a neural representation of joint-behaviors by far more accurate than that provided by the "canonical action-related cells", modulated by the action per se regardless of the individual/interactive context. A neural representation of joint-performance was obtained by combining the activity recorded from the two brains. Our findings offer the first evidence concerning neural mechanisms subtending interactive visuomotor coordination between co-acting agents.

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Section: Joint-action Cells In Primate Premotor Cortexsupporting

confidence: 86%

Two brains in action: Joint-action coding in the primate frontal cortex

2019

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“…The results from the group which performed the Joint Action Goal Condition last indicate that a joint action goal representation may, as we predicted, reduce visuomotor interference effects arising from the observation of a physically incongruent action. These results build upon earlier research indicating that the visuomotor interference effects arising from the perception of a virtual partner's physically incongruent movement can be reduced when two physically incongruent movements are represented as complementary contributions to a joint action goal 14,20 . Our results extend this research by suggesting that a joint action goal representation can reduce visuomotor interference effects even when agents must detect a joint action partner's physically incongruent movement while simultaneously producing actions that are contingently related to these.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Sacheli et al's proposed answer is that the representation of a joint action goal enables joint action partners to integrate representations of their own and their partner's actions within a single dyadic (multi-person) motor plan 14 . As they put it, this dyadic motor plan enables them to select appropriate responses to their partner's actions on the basis of their predicted outcomes (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can joint action goals reduce visuomotor interference effects from a partner’s incongruent actions?

Clarke¹,

Francová²,

Székely³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Joint actions often require agents to track others’ actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own. Previous research has indicated that this can lead to visuomotor interference effects when it occurs outside of joint action. How is this avoided or overcome in joint actions? We hypothesized that when joint action partners represent their actions as interrelated components of a plan to bring about a joint action goal, each partner’s movements need not be represented in relation to distinct, incongruent proximal goals. Instead they can be represented in relation to a single proximal goal – especially if the movements are, or appear to be, mechanically linked to a more distal joint action goal. To test this, we implemented a paradigm in which participants produced finger movements that were either congruent or incongruent with those of a virtual partner, and either with or without a joint action goal (the joint flipping of a switch, which turned on two light bulbs). Our findings provide partial support for the hypothesis that visuomotor interference effects may be reduced when two physically incongruent actions can be represented as mechanically interdependent contributions to a joint action goal.

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“…Interactive gestures may in fact be processed based on a sensorimotor coding that maps the representation of the observed action onto an interactive script that triggers a complementary response. This would imply that when observers perceive a gesture that is a component of hand-shaking, a hand-shaking script would be activated in the sensorimotor system of the observer and facilitate the performance of the complementary hand shaking action (see [13,14,15,16,17,18,19]). In other words, the perception of interactive gestures might entail social affordances.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The engaging nature of interactive gestures

Curioni¹,

Knoblich²,

Sebanz³

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

Self Cite

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The social interactions that we experience from early infancy often involve actions that are not strictly instrumental but engage the recipient by eliciting a (complementary) response. Interactive gestures may have privileged access to our perceptual and motor systems either because of their intrinsically engaging nature or as a result of extensive social learning. We compared these two hypotheses in a series of behavioral experiments by presenting individuals with interactive gestures that call for motor responses to complement the interaction ('hand shaking', 'requesting', 'high-five') and with communicative gestures that are equally socially relevant and salient, but do not strictly require a response from the recipient ('Ok', 'Thumbs up', 'Peace'). By means of a spatial compatibility task, we measured the interfering power of these task-irrelevant stimuli on the behavioral responses of individuals asked to respond to a target. Across three experiments, our results showed that the interactive gestures impact on response selection and reduce spatial compatibility effects as compared to the communicative (non-interactive) gestures. Importantly, this effect was independent of the activation of specific social scripts that may interfere with response selection. Overall, our results show that interactive gestures have privileged access to our perceptual and motor systems, possibly because they entail an automatic preparation to respond that involuntary engages the motor system of the observers. We discuss the implications from a developmental and neurophysiological point of view.

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Evidence for a dyadic motor plan in joint action

Cited by 59 publications

References 49 publications

Two brains in action: Joint-action coding in the primate frontal cortex

Two brains in action: Joint-action coding in the primate frontal cortex

Can joint action goals reduce visuomotor interference effects from a partner’s incongruent actions?

The engaging nature of interactive gestures

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