Perception-action mediation in sensory-motor learning: observational and motor practice

演示通常被用作简洁、轻松地传达信息的工具。尽管它们无处不在，但在传递的信息类型、观察练习有效的条件以及它们如何促进运动技能习得方面仍存在不确定性。鉴于最近的证据表明，观察和行动的大脑结构是共同的，研究人员从运动结构的激活方面讨论了观察练习的好处，据说可以实现模拟和运动学习。然而，长期以来人们一直认为，观察性学习的好处是由认知（战略）表征或期望行动的感知“蓝图”介导的。在这项研究中，我将使用3个任务来研究观察如何介导和潜在地促进运动表现和学习。在任务A中，我将使用一个响亮的令人震惊的刺激来测试对一个动作的观察是否涉及观察者对该动作的隐蔽准备。根据“模拟”理论，观察涉及与行动相同的过程，要么是亚阈值激活，要么是抑制。在任务B中，我将看到观察练习如何帮助人们仅仅通过观察来学习适应环境条件的变化。人们在观看时参与与实际移动相关的预测过程的观点，对他们如何在正常环境和新环境之间切换有影响，从而得出关于支持观察学习的知识类型的结论。在任务C中，我将研究人们如何学会描述观察到的或感觉到的他人的动作，以便共同或单独地执行协调任务。这将有助于我们理解（观察到的）动作是如何表现的，当由于受伤、疾病或实际限制，只有一部分动作可以练习时，它们是如何为学习和训练提供信息的。这个协调任务还将用于探索观察者如何发展知识（洞察力），以及程序意识如何与感觉运动学习相互作用，并在此之前或之后进行。这些实验将增加视觉运动学习的理论，并有助于设计最适合效率、记忆和转移的练习。

Demonstrations are commonly used as tools for conveying information succinctly and easily. Despite their ubiquity, there are uncertainties about the type of information that is conveyed, the conditions under which observational practice is effective, and how they work to facilitate motor skill acquisition. In view of recent evidence showing shared brain structures for seeing and doing, researchers have discussed observational practice benefits in terms of activation of motor structures, supposedly enabling simulation and motor learning. It has long been thought, however, that observational learning benefits were mediated by cognitive (strategic) representations or perceptual 'blueprints' of desired actions. In this research I will use 3 tasks to study how observation mediates and potentially facilitates motor performance and learning. In Task A I will use a loud startling stimulus to test whether observation of an action involves covert preparation of the action in the observer. According to 'simulation' theories, observation involves the same processes as action, with either sub-threshold activation and/or inhibition. In Task B, I will see how observational practice aids people learning to adapt to changes in environmental conditions, merely through watching. The idea that people engage in predictive processes associated with actually moving when watching, has implications for how they would switch between normal and new environments, allowing for conclusions about the types of knowledge underpinning observational learning. In Task C I will study how people learn to represent the observed or felt movements of others in order to perform jointly and alone in coordination tasks. This will aid our understanding of how (observed) actions are represented, how they inform learning and aid training when only part of the action can be practised, due to injury, disease or practical limits. This coordination task will also be used to probe how observers develop knowledge (insight) and how procedural awareness interacts with and precedes or follows sensory-motor learning. These experiments will add to theories of visual-motor learning and aid in devising practice that is best suited for efficiency, retention and transfer.