The impact of motor experience on object exploration, motor competence, and action understanding

动作是通过感觉系统（我们所看到的）和运动系统（我们如何移动）之间的相互作用来准备和执行的。此外，我们结合我们所知道的关于期望对象及其属性的信息。本研究将通过研究运动经验对婴儿获得物理知识和物体探索、运动能力和动作理解的影响来解决这一复杂的相互作用。物理知识的获取：在物理世界中成功的行动需要对物体属性和它们所提供的行动类型有复杂的了解。婴儿通过优化的感知-行动程序学习相关的物体属性，他们也将这些信息整合到他们的对象导向行动中（Gibson & Pick, 2000）。例如，一个物体的材质提供了线索，使我们能够推断出它的重量，并指导我们的行动（Smith et al., 1985）。最近的研究还表明，9个月大的婴儿将通过探索获得的知识应用于随后的伸手行动（J3）。稍微大一点的婴儿将物体的重量与它的材料联系起来，并将这种知识转移到新的物体上（J7, J6, J4）。本研究将探讨手操作经验对婴儿注视行为的影响，以及感知到的体重相关行为对随后的到达偏好和探索行为的影响，为感知和运动系统的双向联系提供进一步的证据。运动能力：最近的研究表明，自我运动的开始与许多认知技能是一致的。例如，在9个月大的时候，爬行的能力与目标相关模仿任务中更灵活的记忆检索有关（Herbert et al., 2007），走路的能力似乎与婴儿的语言发展有关（Walle & Campos, 2013）。爬行和行走的开始也与社会发展的重大进步相对应（Clearfield, 2011），增强了对此类运动的识别和感知（BC2; Sanefuji, Ohgami, & Hashiya, 2008），并有助于检测身体约束违规（Hauf, MacDonald, & Giese, in prep）。本研究将进一步加深我们对运动经验对运动知觉的影响的理解，通过跟踪学龄前婴儿直到他们有经验的学步者。在此期间，将记录运动发展，并进行与身体运动和目标导向动作相关的不同感知任务。此外，视觉和运动增强课程对婴儿感知和运动产生的影响将被检查。行动理解：在生命的最初几年，行动理解的发展是认知发展的一个重要问题。近年来，对动作感知和动作产生的双向相互作用（BC4）进行了研究。这些发现——得到了镜像神经元系统研究的支持（Falck-Ytter, Gredebäck, & von Hofsten, 2006）——表明，即使在婴儿期，动作感知和产生之间也存在密切联系。拟议的研究计划将系统地调查运动和感知系统对动作理解的重要性，以及一个系统的可能发展如何影响另一个系统的能力。例如，视觉刺激会将婴儿的注意力引导到动作场景的特殊特征上，促进动作理解。同样，代理经验将增强婴儿执行特定目标导向动作所需的运动能力，这反过来将有助于理解他人所执行的感知动作。

Actions are prepared and executed by an impressive interplay between the sensory system (what we see) and the motor system (how we move). Additionally, we incorporate what we know about the desired object and its properties. The proposed research project will address this complex interplay by investigating the impact of motor experience on infants' acquisition of physical knowledge and object exploration, motor competence, and action understanding. Acquisition of physical knowledge: Successful acting in the physical world requires sophisticated knowledge about object properties and the kind of actions that they afford. Infants learn about relevant object properties through optimised perception-action routines, and they also integrate that information into their object-directed actions (Gibson & Pick, 2000). For example, an object's material provides cues that allow us to infer its weight and to guide our actions prospectively (Smith et al., 1985). Recent research also demonstrated that infants as young as 9 months of age apply knowledge acquired through exploration to subsequent reaching actions (J3). Slightly older infants relate the weight of an object to its material and transfer this knowledge to new objects (J7, J6, J4). The proposed studies will investigate the influence of manual experience on infants' looking behaviour, as well as the influence of perceived weight-related behaviour on subsequent reaching preference and explorative behaviour providing further evidence for the bidirectional connection of perceptual and motor systems. Motor competence: Recent studies indicate that the onset of self-locomotion coincides with a number of cognitive skills. For example, the ability to crawl is associated with more flexible memory retrieval in goal-related imitation tasks by 9 months of age (Herbert et al., 2007), and the ability to walk seems to be related to infants' language development (Walle & Campos, 2013). The onset of crawling and walking also corresponds with major advances in social development (Clearfield, 2011), enhances the recognition and perception of such movements (BC2; Sanefuji, Ohgami, & Hashiya, 2008), and facilitates the detection of body-constraint violations (Hauf, MacDonald, & Giese, in prep). The proposed research will further deepen our understanding of the impact of motor experience on movement perception by following pre-crawling infants until they are experienced walkers. During this time, motor development will be recorded, and different perception tasks related to body movements and goal-directed actions will be conducted. Furthermore, the influence of visual and motor enhancement sessions on infants' perception and production of movements will be examined. Action understanding: The development of action understanding during the first years of life is an important issue in cognitive development. In recent years, research has focused on the bi-directional interplay of action perception and action production (BC4). These findings - supported by research on the mirror-neuron system (Falck-Ytter, Gredebäck, & von Hofsten, 2006) - suggest that, even in infancy, there is a close linkage between action perception and production. The proposed research program will systematically investigate how important motor and perceptual systems are for action understanding, and how possible development in one system impacts the capacities of the other. For example, visual stimuli will direct infants' attention to special features of action scenes, facilitating action understanding. Likewise, agentive experience will enhance infants' motor capacities required to perform a specific goal-directed action, which, in turn, will facilitate understanding of perceived actions performed by others.