Knowledge-based control of cognition and action

识别或作用于对象通常发生在考虑多个目标对象或动作意图的上下文中。例如，当你在早餐时伸手去拿一杯咖啡时，你可能会面对一张餐桌，上面还放着一杯橙子汁、一片吐司和一碗带勺子的麦片粥，所有这些都要求你做出与抓住杯子垂直把手完全不同的动作。只要看到这些替代目标对象，或者最近与它们互动，就有可能在脑海中呈现出与它们相关的手部动作。然后，这些无关的动作表征可能与预期动作竞争，减慢到达和抓握反应，甚至修改运动的细节，导致不完美的抓握或可能导致不愉快事故的笨拙动作。测量猴子前运动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代表多个动作意图，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语言理解等智力任务中可能出现的动作表征之间的潜在冲突时所涉及的基本心理过程。 我计划在一系列任务情况下，包括对象识别，使达到和把握行动，并理解句子，描述适用于可操作的对象的行动之间的相互作用的竞争行动表示。通过测量做出一个动作所需的时间，或者用来阅读描述一个动作的句子的眼球运动模式，或者手在执行伸手和抓握动作时所做的详细运动，我将能够得出关于当某人看到一个物体或理解一个句子时所唤起的动作表征的结论，以及这些表征之间的竞争如何解决以允许正确的任务执行或导致性能错误。 这项研究将提供有关概念知识和动作表征如何支持熟练的性能的重要信息。它还将有助于更深入地了解在执行手动操作和识别对象时的选择性障碍，这些障碍通常是由局部脑损伤或神经退化造成的。

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.***     I plan to examine interactions between competing action representations in a range of task situations, including object identification, making reach and grasp actions, and understanding sentences that describe actions applied to manipulable objects. By measuring the time taken to make an action, or the pattern of eye movements used to read a sentence describing an action, or the detailed movement a hand makes as it executes a reach and grasp action, I will be able to form conclusions about the kinds of action representations that are evoked when someone views an object or understands a sentence, and about how competition between those representations is either resolved to allow correct task performance or results in a performance error.***     This research will provide important information about how conceptual knowledge and action representations support skilled performance. It will also contribute to a deeper understanding of the selective impairments in performing manual actions and identifying objects that often result from localized brain damage or neural degeneration.**