Agency assignment in visuomotor control: a dedicated mechanism to attribute visual feedback to motor commands

视觉运动控制中的代理分配：将视觉反馈归因于运动命令的专用机制

• 批准号: 208029032
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Alexandra Reichenbach
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Department of Computer Science
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Fellowships
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2010-12-31 至 2012-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/208029032?language=en
• 关键词: Agency; assignment; visuomotor; control; dedicated

For most species, the ability to produce fast and accurate movements is critical for survival. To execute precise goal-directed movements, the visuomotor system must react appropriately to unexpected changes. To do this, it must simultaneously monitor visual information about the target and about the moving limb(s). In natural environments, this task is complicated by the need to ignore irrelevant visual objects. Nonetheless, the visuomotor system promptly reacts to visual feedback, suggesting that it automatically tags information about the moving limb(s) in parafoveal vision. I propose that the link between visual feedback and motor commands is achieved by a dedicated mechanism: agency assignment, the process of attributing outcomes to their causes. The first part of the project investigates the degree to which agency assignment and visual attention rely on shared or separate processes. Both mechanisms extract relevant information from complex visual scenes but differ fundamentally in their functions. I will test whether agency assignment operates independently of the focus of visual attention. Many natural actions involve simultaneously moving limbs. Because visual information is often ambiguous, it is difficult to determine which limb caused which visual change. Thus, the visuomotor system must continuously estimate the source of agency. In the second part of the project, I will model this estimation process in a Bayesian framework. Behavioural experiments using bimanual reaching movements will test the model predictions that explain how visual and motor parameters modulate the estimation process. The third part of the project explores the neural correlates of agency assignment using magneto encephalography. I will test the hypothesis that agency assignment depends on the coherence of neural activity in visual and sensory-motor regions. Thus, this project establishes a novel conception of how the brain achieves efficient feedback control during natural movements.

对于大多数物种来说，产生快速和准确运动的能力对于生存至关重要。为了执行精确的目标导向运动，视觉系统必须对意外的变化做出适当的反应。要做到这一点，它必须同时监测关于目标和关于运动肢体的视觉信息。在自然环境中，由于需要忽略不相关的视觉对象，这项任务变得复杂。尽管如此，视觉系统迅速对视觉反馈做出反应，这表明它自动标记关于旁视中移动肢体的信息。我认为视觉反馈和运动指令之间的联系是通过一种专门的机制实现的：代理分配，将结果归因于其原因的过程。该项目的第一部分调查的程度，机构分配和视觉注意力依赖于共享或单独的过程。这两种机制都从复杂的视觉场景中提取相关信息，但在功能上有根本的不同。我将检验能动性分配是否独立于视觉注意力的焦点而起作用。许多自然动作都涉及同时移动四肢。由于视觉信息通常是模糊的，因此很难确定哪一个肢体引起了哪一个视觉变化。因此，视觉系统必须不断地估计能动性的来源。在项目的第二部分，我将在贝叶斯框架中对这个估计过程进行建模。使用双手达到运动的行为实验将测试模型预测，解释视觉和运动参数如何调节估计过程。第三部分是利用脑磁图来探讨代理分配的神经相关性。我将测试的假设，代理分配取决于视觉和感觉运动区域的神经活动的一致性。因此，这个项目建立了一个新的概念，大脑如何实现有效的反馈控制在自然运动。

项目成果

A dedicated binding mechanism for the visual control of movement.

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.02.030
• 发表时间: 2014-03-31
• 期刊: CURRENT BIOLOGY
• 影响因子: 9.2
• 作者: Reichenbach, Alexandra;Franklin, David W.;Zatka-Haas, Peter;Diedrichsen, Joern
• 通讯作者: Diedrichsen, Joern