Motion monitoring system

手部动作的心理表征构成了我们对计算器和喷雾罐等可操作物体的知识的一部分。有证据表明，这种表示是动态调用时，感知对象或理解句子描述与对象的相互作用。这些表征甚至在与持有或使用物体无关的任务中也会被唤起。因此，高级运动系统在认知中所扮演的角色具有根本的意义，就像在特定情境中诱发的运动表征一样。 我们开发了一种新颖的实验方法来评估特定的手部动作表征在真实的时间内对单词、物体或句子的唤起。我们的方法要求参与者进行快速达到和把握八元素反应装置上的行动。每个元素都提供了一个独特的动作，参与者学会根据一个视觉提示（如色块）产生一个给定的动作。然后，我们测量的影响，一个对象，单词或句子（启动事件）达到和把握性能，时间锁定的视觉线索，产生的证据的性质和时间过程中引起的启动事件的电机表示。 该方法已被证明是非常富有成效的，但我们缺乏手段来评估飞行中的手的动力学，这是表现的一个关键方面，将揭示底层运动表征的时间参数如何在真实的时间内自动影响动作。 我们要求的设备将允许我们：（i）确定当手柄与响应手对齐或不对齐时，任何一只手的伸手和抓握如何受到手柄物体（如啤酒杯）的影响。(ii)我们还将评估到达和抓握反应如何受到所描绘对象的功能和体积方面的影响（例如，计算器），以及（iii）评估由听觉词诱发的手动作表征的动态，所述听觉词指的是可操纵的对象，在隔离中或在不同的句子上下文中呈现。 这项研究将增加我们对确定物体和词语识别的机制与控制伸手和抓握反应动态控制的运动系统之间相互作用的理解。

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.