Motor cognition in plants: from thought to real experiments

Abstract

Motor cognition involves the process of planning and executing goal–directed movements and recognizing, anticipating, and interpreting others’ actions. Motor cognitive functions are generally associated with the presence of a brain and are ascribed only to humans and other animal species. A growing body of evidence suggests that aneural organisms, like climbing plants, exhibit behaviors driven by the intention to achieve goals, challenging our understanding of cognition. Here, we propose an inclusive perspective under motor cognition to explain climbing plants’ behavior. We will first review our empirical research based on kinematical analysis to understand movement in pea plants. Then, we situate this empirical research within the current theoretical debate aimed at extending the principles of cognition to aneural organisms. A novel comparative perspective that considers the perception–action cycle, involving transforming perceived environmental elements into intended movement patterns, is provided.

On Handedness in Animals and Plants

“…An increasing number of studies have suggested that plant and animal behaviours show strong similarities (e.g., decision-making, learning) and that a neural architecture is not ubiquitously necessary to support certain abilities [44][45][46][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63]. However, how can we trace a territory in which handedness for animals and plants can coexist and, more importantly, be revealed?…”

“…Recently, the kinematical approach has been extended to the study of goal-directed movement in plants. In specific, the approaching and clasping movements performed by different organs of a pea plant towards a potential support have been characterized [44][45][46][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55]63,73]. These findings have demonstrated that pea plants are able to perceive an element in the environment and to modulate the kinematics of their movement in terms of velocity, acceleration, aperture of their tendrils, and smoothness on the basis of the feature of the to-be-grasped support [45,[51][52][53][54][55], the task (e.g., decision-making) [46,63], and the context (e.g., competition or cooperation) [44,48].…”