Planning actions in autism

Fabbri-Destro, Maddalena; Cattaneo, Luigi; Boria, Sonia; Rizzolatti, Giacomo

doi:10.1007/s00221-008-1578-3

Cited by 163 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Our results indicate that infants not only plan different action types differently, as shown for throwing versus placing by Claxton et al (2003), but also same actions with different degrees of difficulty, as shown for 7-year-olds by Fabbri-Destro et al (2009). In line with our first hypothesis that infants prepare for different degrees of difficulty by prospectively controlling their reaching speed, infants reached faster when the upcoming action was easier (vs. more difficult).…”

Section: Reachingsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…It could be that infants plan differently for different types (or catego-ries) of actions and goal intentions (e.g., reaching with the intent to throw vs. place an object; here referred to as action type planning). Infants might also be able to plan their actions on a more fine-grained level, based on a continuous scale of task difficulty (here referred to as action difficulty planning), as shown for older children (Fabbri-Destro et al, 2009). In prior infant studies (Chen et al, 2010;Claxton et al, 2003) these two levels have been confounded.…”

Section: Discussion Study Imentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While these authors have a cognitive, top-down approach to action planning -their model involves explicit strategies, decisions, knowledge and representations -action planning can also be addressed from a motor control perspective (Cohen & Rosenbaum, 2004;Fabbri-Destro, Cattaneo, Boria, & Rizzolatti, 2009;Keen, Lee, & Adolph, 2014). In the latter context, action planning is reflected in goal-directed movements without the need for representations or explicit processes.…”

Section: Action Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Infants in Control: Prospective Motor Control and Executive Functions in Action Development

Gottwald¹

2018

Preprint

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This thesis assesses the link between action and cognition early in development. Thus the notion of an embodied cognition is investigated by tying together two levels of action control in the context of reaching in infancy: prospective motor control and executive functions.The ability to plan our actions is the inevitable foundation of reaching our goals. Thus actions can be stratified on different levels of control. There is the relatively low level of prospective motor control and the comparatively high level of cognitive control. Prospective motor control is concerned with goal-directed actions on the level of single movements and movement combinations of our body and ensures purposeful, coordinated movements, such as reaching for a cup of coffee. Cognitive control, in the context of this thesis more precisely referred to as executive functions, deals with goal-directed actions on the level of whole actions and action combinations and facilitates directedness towards mid-and long-term goals, such as finishing a doctoral thesis. Whereas prospective motor control and executive functions are well studied in adulthood, the early development of both is not sufficiently understood.This thesis comprises three empirical motion-tracking studies that shed light on prospective motor control and executive functions in infancy. Study I investigated the prospective motor control of current actions by having 14-month-olds lift objects of varying weights. In doing so, multi-cue integration was addressed by comparing the use of visual and non-visual information to non-visual information only. Study II examined the prospective motor control of future actions in action sequences by investigating reach-to-place actions in 14-month-olds. Thus the extent to which Fitts' law can explain movement duration in infancy was addressed. Study III lifted prospective motor control to a higher that is cognitive level, by investigating it relative to executive functions in 18-months-olds.Main results were that 14-month-olds are able to prospectively control their manual actions based on object weight. In this action planning process, infants use different sources of information. Beyond this ability to prospectively control their current action, 14-month-olds also take future actions into account and plan their actions based on the difficulty of the subsequent action in action sequences. In 18-month-olds, prospective motor control in manual actions, such as reaching, is related to early executive functions, as demonstrated for behavioral prohibition and working memory. These findings are consistent with the idea that executive functions derive from prospective motor control. I suggest that executive functions could be grounded in the development of motor control. In other words, early executive functions should be seen as embodied.

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Section: Reachingsupporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Discussion Study Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Action Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Infants in Control: Prospective Motor Control and Executive Functions in Action Development

Gottwald¹

2018

Preprint

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“…3) seems to be a promising way to tackle a range of neurodevelopmental and drugrelated disorders. In ASD, early motor cognition anomalies resulting in basic motor-understanding difficulties could be one of the crucial neurocognitive markers for ASD detection (Becchio, Pierno, Mari, Lusher, & Castiello, 2007;Cattaneo et al, 2007;Fabbri-Destro et al, 2009;Parma, Bulgheroni, Tirindelli, & Castiello, 2013;Rochat et al, 2013), and potentially they could be tested even in infancy, before the onset of unequivocal behavioral symptoms (for reviews from nonmotor perspectives, see Jones, Gliga, Bedford, Charman, & Johnson, 2014;Keehn, Müller, & Townsend, 2013;Klin, Shultz, & Jones, 2015). Furthermore, considering that ASD is a lifelong condition that usually requires permanent assistance, motor cognition anomalies may assume a pivotal role for setting (early) rehabilitative protocols to improve social functioning (Pineda, Carrasco, Datko, Pillen, & Schalles, 2014;Rogers et al, 2014;Zwaigenbaum, Bryson, & Garon, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The motor way: Clinical implications of understanding and shaping actions with the motor system in autism and drug addiction

Casartelli

Chiamulera

2015

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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To understand others' minds is crucial for survival; however, it is quite puzzling how access to others' minds can be-to some extent-direct and not necessarily mediated by conceptual reasoning. Recent advances in neuroscience have led to hypothesize a role for motor circuits not only in controlling the elementary physical features of movement (e.g., force, direction, and amplitude), but also in understanding and shaping human behavior. The concept of Bmotor cognition^refers to these aspects, and neurophysiological, neuroimaging, and behavioral studies in human and nonhuman primates support this view. From a clinical perspective, motor cognition represents a challenge in several domains. A thorough investigation of the neural mechanisms mediating motor action/intention understanding and automatized/compulsive behaviors seems to be a promising way to tackle a range of neurodevelopmental and drug-related disorders. On the one hand, anomalies in motor cognition may have cascade effects on social functioning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); on the other, motor cognition may help explain the pathophysiology of drug-seeking and drug-taking behaviors in the most severe phase of drug addiction (i.e., see drug dependence, motor low-order cue reactivity). This may represent a promising approach that could improve the efficacy of rehabilitative interventions. The only way to shed light on multifactorial disorders such as ASD and drug addiction is through the investigation of their multiple factors. This motor way can promote new theoretical and experimental perspectives that would help bridge the gap between the basic neuroscience approach and clinical practice.

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“…Second, the research group of Rizzolatti has postulated that the primary deficit is not the responsiveness of the hMNS to the observation of others' actions, but the impaired organization of motor chains underlying the action representations (Cattaneo et al, 2007;Fabbri-Destro, Cattaneo, Boria, & Rizzolatti, 2009). They draw attention to the recent finding of action-constrained parietal mirror neurons in monkeys.…”

Section: The Visuomotor Map Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the mechanisms behind deficits in imitation: Do individuals with autism know ‘what’ to imitate and do they know ‘how’ to imitate?

Vanvuchelen¹,

Schuerbeeck²,

Roeyers³

et al. 2013

Research in Developmental Disabilities

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Although imitation problems have been associated with autism for many years, the underlying mechanisms of these problems remain subject to debate. In this article, the question whether imitation problems are caused by selection or correspondence problems is explored and discussed. This review revealed that hypotheses on the nature of imitation problems in autism are complicated and inconclusive at the present time. There is some evidence for impaired selection, especially implicating poor preferential attention to biological motion and poor ascription of intention to action. There is also some evidence that both transformations of perspectives and mapping of visual to motor information are impaired, characterized as correspondence problems. However, it is not yet clear how poor selection processes contribute to correspondence problems and vice versa. Insight in this interaction may provide a valuable contribution to our understanding of imitation problems in autism. For further research we recommend that tasks should be constrained to target as few mechanisms as possible in given experiments.

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Planning actions in autism

Cited by 163 publications

References 16 publications

Infants in Control: Prospective Motor Control and Executive Functions in Action Development

Infants in Control: Prospective Motor Control and Executive Functions in Action Development

The motor way: Clinical implications of understanding and shaping actions with the motor system in autism and drug addiction

Understanding the mechanisms behind deficits in imitation: Do individuals with autism know ‘what’ to imitate and do they know ‘how’ to imitate?

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