Constituents of action evoked by language and perception.

一个广泛持有的观点是，一个可操纵的对象的图像可以自动触发抓取动作的成分。运动表征同样也会被一个表示动作的单词或句子所唤起，这让人们相信，在语言理解过程中，动作是被默认模仿的。这些说法有多有效？ 如果这是真的，那么当我们看到可抓握的物体或听到“使用喷雾罐”这样的句子时，运动意图在选择动作特征中的作用是什么？预期的动作仅仅是从已经活动的视觉表征中选择的吗？在接下来的五年里，我的研究计划将确定意图本身在唤起物体和词语的运动成分方面发挥着重要作用。长期目标是阐明感知、语言和行动之间的关系。本提案的第1节描述了一组实验，严格追求以下问题：在什么样的任务条件下，如果有的话，图像的可操纵对象触发成分的把握行动？第2节评估的主张，运动功能的行动的基础上的意义的陈述句是在理解过程中触发。一个新的，替代假设将追求更详细地评估这些运动表征的性质，并呼吁这一假设提出质疑。 第三个问题如下。一个像手机这样的物体会根据使用或举起的意图而提供不同的动作，如果目标导向的动作仅仅是从已经存在的视觉表征中选择的，那么像“拿起手机”这样的祈使句的含义应该是举起而不是使用动作（反之亦然），即使没有行动的意图。在第3节中，我开发了一个新的一系列实验，将揭示由命令句诱导的动作的性质取决于听者（i）是否只是注意到的意义;（ii）打算直接行动的意义或（iii）打算暂时推迟行动，同时对同一或不同的对象进行另一个动作。意义是否从一组由指定对象强化的相互竞争的启示中选择一个动作？或者，运动意图在动作的选择中起着根本性的作用？它将建立一个祈使句所引起的运动表征的激活和选择从根本上取决于听者的意图。本研究将加深我们对不同任务条件下由物体和句子触发的运动表征的理解。

A widely held view is that the image of a manipulable object can automatically trigger constituents of grasp actions. Motor representations are likewise evoked by a word or a sentence denoting an action, lending credence to the idea that actions are tacitly emulated during language comprehension. How valid are these claims? If true, then what is the role of motor intentions in the selection of action features when we view graspable objects or attend to a sentence like “use the spraycan”? Are intended actions merely selected from already active visuomotor representations? Over the next five years, my research program will establish that intentions themselves play a fundamental role in evoking the motor constituents of objects and words. The longer term goal is to shed light on the relationship between perception, language and action. Section 1 of this proposal describes a set of experiments that rigorously pursues the following question: Under what task conditions, if any, do images of manipulable objects trigger constituents of grasp actions? Section 2 evaluates the claim that the motor features of the actions based on the meaning of a declarative sentence are triggered during comprehension. A novel, alternative hypothesis will be pursued which evaluates the nature of these motor representations in more detail, and calls this assumption into question. A third issue is the following. An object like a cellphone affords different actions depending on whether the intention is to use or lift it. If goal-directed actions are merely selected from already existing visuomotor representations, the meaning of an imperative sentence like “Pick up the cellphone” should potentiate a lift rather than use action (and vice versa), even in the absence of an intention to act. In Section 3, I develop a novel series of experiments that will shed light on the nature of actions induced by an imperative sentence depending on whether the listener (i) simply attends to the meaning; (ii) intends to act on the meaning directly or (iii) intends to postpone the action momentarily while carrying out another action on the same or different object. Does the meaning select an action from a set of competing affordances potentiated by a designated object? Or, do motor intentions play a fundamental role in the selection of actions? It will be established that the activation and selection of motor representations evoked by an imperative sentence fundamentally depend on the listener's intentions. My research will deepen our understanding of motor representations triggered by objects and sentences under different task conditions.