Knowledge-based control of cognition and action

识别或作用于对象经常发生在考虑多个目标对象或动作意图的环境中。例如，当早餐时伸手去拿一杯咖啡时，一个人可能会面对一张桌子，桌子上还放着一杯橙汁，盘子里放着一片烤面包片，勺子里放着一碗麦片，所有这些都引起了与抓住杯子垂直把手完全不同的动作。只要将这些可选择的目标对象放在视线中，或者最近与它们进行过互动，就有可能让玩家想起与之相关的手部动作的心理表征。这些无关的动作表现形式可能会与预期的动作相竞争，减缓伸手和抓握的反应，甚至修改动作的细节，导致不完美的抓握或笨拙的动作，从而导致不愉快的事故。测量猴子运动前皮层单细胞活动的神经生理学实验表明，灵长类动物能够同时表现多个动作意图，并在其中进行选择，就像这个假设的早餐桌场景所暗示的那样。本提案中描述的研究考察了人类成功解决复杂环境中甚至智力任务（如语言理解）中可能出现的行动表征之间潜在冲突时所涉及的基本心理过程。

Identifying or acting on objects often occurs in contexts where multiple target objects or action intentions are being considered. For example, when reaching for a mug of coffee during breakfast, one might be faced with a dining table that also holds a glass of orange juice, a piece of toast on a plate, and a bowl of cereal with a spoon, all of which invite actions quite different from grasping the vertical handle of a mug. Simply having these alternative target objects in view, or having recently interacted with them, has the potential to bring to mind a mental representation of their associated hand actions. These extraneous action representations may then compete with the intended action, slowing the reach and grasp response, or even modifying details of the movement, leading to an imperfect grasp or possibly a clumsy action that results in an unpleasant accident. Neurophysiological experiments measuring single-cell activity in the pre-motor cortex of monkeys shows that primates are capable of representing multiple action intentions simultaneously and of selecting among them, just as suggested by this hypothetical breakfast table scenario. The research described in this proposal examines the basic mental processes that are involved when humans successfully resolve potential conflicts between action representations that can arise in complex environments or even in intellectual tasks such as language comprehension.