Motion monitoring system

手部动作的心理表征构成了我们对可操纵物体的知识的一部分，例如计算器和喷雾罐。证据表明，当感知物体或理解描述与物体相互作用的句子时，这种表征是动态调用的。即使在与持有或使用对象无关的任务中，这些表示也会被唤起。因此，更高层次的运动系统在认知中所起的作用具有根本的意义，就像在特定背景下唤起的那种运动表征一样。我们开发了一种新的实验方法来实时评估对单词、对象或句子的特定手势表征的唤起。我们的方法要求参与者在八要素反应装置上进行快速伸展和掌握动作。每个元素提供一个独特的动作，参与者学习根据视觉提示(如色块)产生给定的动作。然后，我们测量了物体、单词或句子(启动事件)对视觉线索时间锁定的伸展和抓取性能的影响，得出了启动事件所唤起的运动表征的性质和时间进程的证据。该方法已被证明是非常有效的，但我们缺乏评估飞行中手的动力学的手段，这是性能的一个关键方面，将揭示潜在运动表示的时间参数如何在动作实时展开时自动影响动作。我们要求的设备将允许我们：(I)确定当手柄与反应手对齐或错位时，握手物体(如啤酒杯)如何影响两只手的伸手和抓握。(Ii)我们还将评估触觉和抓握反应如何受到图片对象(例如计算器)的功能和体积方面的影响，以及(Iii)评估涉及可操作对象的听觉词语在单独呈现或在不同句子上下文中呈现时所诱发的手动作表征的动力学。这项研究将加深我们对决定物体和单词识别的机制与控制伸展和抓取反应的动态控制的运动系统之间的相互作用的理解。

Mental representations of hand actions form part of our knowledge of manipulable objects, such as calculators and spray-cans. Evidence indicates that such representations are invoked dynamically when perceiving objects or understanding sentences describing interactions with objects. These representations are evoked even in tasks that have nothing to do with holding or using an object. The role played by higher level motor systems in cognition is therefore of fundamental interest, as is the kind of motor representation evoked in particular contexts. We have developed a novel experimental method to assess the evocation of specific hand action representations to words, objects or sentences in real time. Our approach requires participants to carry out speeded reach and grasp actions on an eight-element response apparatus. Each element affords a unique action and participants learn to produce a given action in response to a visual cue like a color patch. We then measure the influence of an object, word or sentence (a priming event) on reach and grasp performance, time-locked to the visual cue, yielding evidence on the nature and time course of the motor representations evoked by the priming event. The method has proved very fruitful but we lack the means to assess the dynamics of the hand in flight, a crucial aspect of performance that will reveal how the temporal parameters of the underlying motor representation can automatically influence an action as it unfolds in real time. The equipment we request will allow us: (i) To determine how reaching and grasping with either hand is influenced by a handled object (like a beer mug), when the handle is aligned or misaligned with the response hand. (ii) We will also evaluate how reach and grasp responses are influenced by functional and volumetric aspects of a pictured object (e.g., a calculator), and (iii) assess the dynamics of hand action representations evoked by auditory words referring to manipulable objects, presented in isolation or in different sentence contexts. The research will add to our understanding of the interaction between the mechanisms that determine the identification of objects and words, and motor systems that govern the dynamic control of the reach and grasp response.