Binding Across Perception and Action

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Every day we interact with a multitude of objects in our environment, and a large part of the success we have in our daily lives depends on the success we have in dealing with the objects we encounter. Because of this, one of the enduring issues in cognition and vision science is how humans attend and perceive objects in the visual field. In other words, how are objects represented in human minds and brains? An early answer was “object files”, where various perceptual features (i.e., colour, shape, size) were bound together to create coherent objects (e.g., this object is a small yellow box). This notion evolved into “event files”, where actions (e.g., left hand response) were added to object representations. My research continues this evolution of object representations by theorizing that cognitive concepts can be treated as features (“cognitive features”) and as such can be bound with perceptual and motor features to form a new type of object representation a “situation file”. To be considered a cognitive feature, a concept must pass a stringent experimental test; the concept must be capable of generating automatic shifts of attention that prioritizes the concept in visual processing. Such possible cognitive features that will be examined include ownership (who owns the object?), reward (is the object valued?), animacy (is the object is alive?), and affordance (what I can use this object for?). None of these cognitive features have direct detectors in the brain, and can exist for only limited periods of time (i.e., situations), but play important roles in defining objects. These cognitive features will then be tested if they can be bound into situation files. Once the cognitive features that can be bound are determined, the next phase of this research will determine how fast perceptual, motor, and cognitive features are bound into situation files, and how strong the binding is between features in objects. In other words, this portion of the research will examine how the binding process works in situation files. Having created the experimental foundation for the theory of situation files, the last phase of the proposed research will apply situation files to generate new insights in the field of motor control, particularly the planning and production of guided limb movements (the movements we typically make when interacting with objects). Specifically, the explanatory power of situation files will be applied to two important issues related to the planning of limb movements; the aftereffect of preparing to move certain fingers on the subsequent movement of other fingers, and how final targets violate a law of trading off speed for accuracy. Overall, the proposed new theory of situation files will extend the concept of object representations to significantly more of the human brain's cognitive processes, allowing for much more powerful explanations of our cognitive, perceptual, and motor behaviours to objects.