ArticlePublisher preview available

Higher levels of motor competence are associated with reduced interference in action perception across the lifespan

Authors:
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract and Figures

Action perception and action production are tightly linked and elicit bi-directional influences on each other when performed simultaneously. In this study, we investigated whether age-related differences in manual fine-motor competence and/or age affect the (interfering) influence of action production on simultaneous action perception. In a cross-sectional eye-tracking study, participants of a broad age range (N = 181, 20-80 years) observed a manual grasp-and-transport action while performing an additional motor or cognitive distractor task. Action perception was measured via participants' frequency of anticipatory gaze shifts towards the action goal. Manual fine-motor competence was assessed with the Motor Performance Series. The interference effect in action perception was greater in the motor than the cognitive distractor task. Furthermore, manual fine-motor competence and age in years were both associated with this interference. The better the participants' manual fine-motor competence and the younger they were, the smaller the interference effect. However, when both influencing factors (age and fine-motor competence) were taken into account, a model including only age-related differences in manual fine-motor competence best fit with our data. These results add to the existing literature that motor competence and its age-related differences influence the interference effects between action perception and production.
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Higher levels of motor competence are associated with reduced
interference in action perception across the lifespan
Stephanie Wermelinger
1
Anja Gampe
1
Moritz M. Daum
1,2
Received: 20 March 2017 / Accepted: 27 October 2017 / Published online: 7 November 2017
ÓSpringer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017
Abstract Action perception and action production are
tightly linked and elicit bi-directional influences on each
other when performed simultaneously. In this study, we
investigated whether age-related differences in manual
fine-motor competence and/or age affect the (interfering)
influence of action production on simultaneous action
perception. In a cross-sectional eye-tracking study, partic-
ipants of a broad age range (N=181, 20–80 years)
observed a manual grasp-and-transport action while per-
forming an additional motor or cognitive distractor task.
Action perception was measured via participants’ fre-
quency of anticipatory gaze shifts towards the action goal.
Manual fine-motor competence was assessed with the
Motor Performance Series. The interference effect in action
perception was greater in the motor than the cognitive
distractor task. Furthermore, manual fine-motor compe-
tence and age in years were both associated with this
interference. The better the participants’ manual fine-motor
competence and the younger they were, the smaller the
interference effect. However, when both influencing factors
(age and fine-motor competence) were taken into account,
a model including only age-related differences in manual
fine-motor competence best fit with our data. These results
add to the existing literature that motor competence and its
age-related differences influence the interference effects
between action perception and production.
Introduction
Successful social interaction involves the anticipation of
our interlocutor’s actions (von Hofsten, 2004). This ability
is assumed to be based on shared representations for per-
ceived and produced actions (Flanagan & Johansson, 2003;
Hommel, Mu
¨sseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2001; Prinz,
1997). Because of this common basis, action perception
and production elicit bi-directional influences on each other
when performed simultaneously: While concurrent and
incongruent action perception and production interfere
with each other, the opposite is true for concurrent and
congruent perception and production (e.g., Brass, Bekker-
ing, & Prinz, 2001). Furthermore, action perception and
production are influenced by motor experience (Roberts
et al., 2016) and age (Diersch, Cross, Stadler, Schu
¨tz-
Bosbach, & Rieger, 2012). In this study, we explored the
influence of age-related differences in manual fine-motor
competence on the interference effect in simultaneous
action perception and production.
Previous research has shown that action perception is
modulated by a concurrent action production. This results
in interference effects in cases in which perceived and
produced actions do not match (Jacobs & Shiffrar, 2005;
Kilner, Paulignan, & Blakemore, 2003). For instance,
Hamilton, Wolpert, and Frith (2004) asked participants to
lift boxes of different weights. At the same time, they were
asked to make judgments about the heaviness of objects
lifted by an actor. Participants perceived objects lifted by
the actor to be lighter when they themselves lifted a heavy
box and heavier when they lifted a light box. In the same
vain, action perception is facilitated by a corresponding
and simultaneously produced action (e.g., evaluation of
movement durations: Hecht, Vogt, & Prinz, 2001; dis-
crimination of hand postures: Miall et al., 2006). Similarly,
&Stephanie Wermelinger
s.wermelinger@psychologie.uzh.ch
1
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich,
Binzmuehlestrasse 14, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland
2
Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
123
Psychological Research (2019) 83:432–444
DOI 10.1007/s00426-017-0941-z
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... Differences in conceptualisation and methods to assess imitation make it difficult to compare findings across the lifespan (Over, 2020;Moersdorf, Freund, & Daum, 2022). In the current paper, we test the suitability of a tool to measure imitation that allows us to investigate imitative acts from childhood to late adulthood (Wermelinger, Gampe, & Daum, 2017). More specifically, we explore a classical automatic imitation task from adult research (imitation-inhibition task; Brass, Bekkering, Wohlschläger, & Prinz, 2000;Brass, Bekkering, & Prinz, 2001) in school-aged children. ...
... Furthermore, any trial in which the participants pressed the wrong key was excluded from the analyses of the reaction times (Brass et al., 2000;Genschow et al., 2021). Finally, we excluded participants if they contributed less than 9 trials per trial type and finger (Genschow et al., 2021;Wermelinger et al., 2017). On average, children included in the data analysis provided M ¼ 81:86 valid trials (SD ¼ 4:96; min ¼ 59; max ¼ 90). ...
... Looking at children's behaviour in baseline, congruent, and incongruent trials showed that the differences between trials were mainly driven by slower reaction times and more errors in the incongruent trials than by faster reaction times and fewer errors in the congruent trials. Put differently, the participants exhibited an interference effect in incongruent trials but no facilitation effect in congruent trials (in line with Wermelinger et al., 2017). This was also mirrored in the adult sample. ...
... However, as is true for the development of the self, the focus of this literature differs between age groups: Whereas the literature on early development is mainly concerned with how children form cognitive representations of means-ends relationships, much of the literature on adolescence investigates the process of forming, exploring, and committing to identity-relevant goals, and the literature on adult development and aging focuses on the role of goals for successful development and healthy aging. Whereas a small number of empirical studies addressdx the development of certain aspects of goals across the entire lifespan(Fagot et al., 2018;Li et al., 2004;Wermelinger et al., 2019), no general lifespan model exists that covers the development of the cognitive representation, structure, or motivational functions of goals. This section will highlight some challenges in defining and conceptualizing goals across the lifespan. ...
Preprint
With this article, we address some of the theoretical and methodological issues faced when attempting to take a developmental approach to understand a psychological phenomenon that encompasses the entire lifespan, that is, from birth to old age. Most prominent among these issues is the challenge of defining and operationalizing a psychological construct valid for the entire lifespan. This entails both the questions of measurement equivalence and continuity and change in the theoretical meaning of a construct. We discuss six different psychological constructs from this perspective. The question that we ask throughout this endeavor is (with a twinkle in our eye) whether adults and young children are members of two different species. From a biological perspective, they are, of course, members of the same species, homo sapiens sapiens. However, the answer might need to be clarified from a cognitive developmental perspective. First, it is difficult to define a construct continuously across the entire lifespan. Hence, the question remains whether constructs such as depression or the self are similar or even the same in early childhood and old age. Second, it is impossible to apply the same measures to assess the constructs across the lifespan. Third, competencies, knowledge, and processing strategies change substantially, particularly from early childhood to later ages. Consequently, it appears that members of the “extreme ends” of the life span, infants and the elderly, seem to be members of “two different species.” However, once we have a theoretical understanding of which less specific measurement is equivalent, we can start to link the data on the construct development. Thus, we are not comparing apples and oranges because we build into the analyses the theoretically justified assumption that a limited set of lifespan developmental principles must and can explain how apples turned into oranges.
... Differences in conceptualisation and methods to assess imitation make it difficult 58 to compare findings across the lifespan (Moersdorf et al., 2022;Over, 2020). In the 59 current paper, we test the suitability of a tool to measure imitation that allows us to 60 investigate imitative acts from childhood to late adulthood (Wermelinger et al., 2017). 61 More specifically, we explore a classical automatic imitation task from adult research 62 (imitation-inhibition task; Brass et al., 2001;Brass et al., 2000) in school-aged children. ...
Preprint
Children imitate others for different reasons: To learn from others and to reach social goals such as affiliation or prosociality. So far, imitative acts have been measured using diverging methods in children and adults. Here, we investigated whether school-aged children’s imitation can be measured via their automatic imitation with a classical imitation-inhibition task (Brass et al., 2000) as has been used in adults. To this end, we measured automatic imitation in N = 94 7-8-year-olds and N = 10 adults. The results were similar in children and adults: Observing actions that are incongruent with participants' actions interferes with their responses resulting in increased reaction times and error rates. This shows that assessing automatic imitation via the imitation-inhibition task is feasible in children, and creates the basis for future studies to compare the behaviour of different age groups with the same imitation task.
... On a neurological level this is often described as the mirror neuron system, centring on the inferior parietal lobule, the inferior frontal gyrus and the ventral premotor cortex (Gatti et al., 2017;Molenberghs et al., 2012) in adults. We suggest that this process operates throughout the life span, based on the correlational developmental literature described above and recent findings demonstrating an association between deteriorated manual proficiency and fewer predictions when observing manual actions in adults and elderly (Wermelinger et al., 2019). ...
Preprint
In the current, empirically grounded paper, we first explore the ways in which manual actions, that is actions performed with hands and arms such as reaching, grasping, and manipulating objects, shape the mind. Based on recent empirical research, we suggest six embodied developmental pathways which solve unique challenges faced by infants and children during development. I) Co-opted motor simulation allows action anticipation, II) interactive specialisation allows executive control to emerge from reaching and grasping. III) Active exploration and IV) error based-learning facilitate cognition and perception. Action based social interactions facilitate V) language development and VI) gesture comprehension. These pathways exemplify how manual actions and the underlying neural processes controlling actions are used by the infant to structure the world and develop cognitive capacities and learn from interactions with the physical and social world. Through an individual difference, correlational approach, we note that these abilities and processes measured in infancy have long-term associations with cognitive and perceptual development into childhood and beyond.
... In support of this assumption, prior work has found evidence for overlapping cortical processing areas within the sensorimotor system for action perception and action production (Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 1996;Grafton, 2009;Iacoboni et al., 1999;Léonard & Tremblay, 2008;Marty et al., 2015). In line with this sensorimotor dependency, previous studies indicate that the accumulated experience with actions (motor experience; Catmur, Walsh, & Heyes, 2009;Sommerville, Hildebrand, & Crane, 2008) and the observers' general motor competence (Wermelinger, Gampe, & Daum, 2017) influence the coupling of action perception and action production. ...
Article
Full-text available
Successful social interaction relies on the interaction partners’ perception, anticipation and understanding of their respective actions. The perception of a particular action and the capability to produce this action share a common representational ground. So far, no study has explored the interrelation between action perception and production across the life span using the same tasks and the same measurement techniques. This study was designed to fill this gap. Participants between 3 and 80 years (N = 214) observed two multistep actions of different familiarities and then reproduced the according actions. Using eye tracking, we measured participants’ action perception via their prediction of action goals during observation. To capture subtler perceptual processes, we additionally analysed the dynamics and recurrent patterns within participants’ gaze behaviour. Action production was assessed via the accuracy of the participants’ reproduction of the observed actions. No age-related differences were found for the perception of the familiar action, where participants of all ages could rely on previous experience. In the unfamiliar action, where participants had less experience, action goals were predicted more frequently with increasing age. The recurrence in participants’ gaze behaviour was related to both, age and action production: gaze behaviour was more recurrent (i.e. less flexible) in very young and very old participants, and lower levels of recurrence (i.e. greater flexibility) were related to higher scores in action production across participants. Incorporating a life-span perspective, this study illustrates the dynamic nature of developmental differences in the associations of action production with action perception.
Article
Soziale Interaktionen basieren auf der Vorwegnahme des Verhaltens Anderer. Durch diese Antizipation der Handlungsziele unserer Interaktionspartner können wir unser eigenes Handeln dem ihrigen anpassen. Bisherige Forschung hat gezeigt, dass diese Wahrnehmung von Handlungen anderer Personen und die eigene Handlungsausführung eng zusammenhängen. Ausserdem verändern sich im Laufe des Lebens sowohl Wahrnehmung als auch Ausführung. Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht, ob sich auch das Zusammenspiel von Handlungswahrnehmung und -ausführung über die Lebensspanne unterscheidet. Innerhalb von drei Studien wurde mittels Eyetracking und behavioralen Massen die Handlungswahrnehmung und –ausführung von Personen zwischen 3 und 80 Jahren (Studie I) und 20 und 80 Jahren (Studie II und Studie III) erfasst. Die Ergebnisse zeigen keine Unterschiede zwischen den Altersgruppen im verzögerten Einfluss von Wahrnehmung auf Ausführung über die Lebensspanne. Im Gegensatz dazu nahmen die unmittelbaren Einflüsse von Wahrnehmung und Ausführung aufeinander mit fortschreitendem Alter zu. Handlungswahrnehmung und -ausführung waren zudem von der akkumulierten motorischen Erfahrung und der motorischen Kompetenz der Probanden beeinflusst. Zusammengefasst zeigen die vorliegenden Ergebnisse Variabilität und Stabilität über die Lebensspanne im Zusammenhang von Handlungswahrnehmung und –ausführung in Abhängigkeit individueller Merkmale der handelnden/ wahrnehmenden Personen. Social interaction requires the anticipation of our interlocutors’ behaviour. Through this anticipation we are able to adjust our actions to our counterparts’ intentions and implicit goals. The ability to anticipate others’ action goals is based on a tight coupling between our perception of actions and our action production ability. However, action perception and production undergo life-long developmental change and so might their coupling. Therefore, this thesis aims at describing the life span trajectory of the interrelations of action perception and production. Using eye-tracking technology and behavioural measures, action perception and production of participants between 3 and 80 years were assessed within three consecutive cross-sectional studies. Results indicate a relatively stable deferred influence of perception on production across the life span. In contrast, the immediate influences within the coupling were accentuated towards late adulthood. Furthermore, these age-related differences were influenced by the participants’ accumulated action experience across the life span and their motor competence. Taken together, the findings of this thesis show stability and variability in the action perception-production coupling across the life span in relation to (age-dependent) individual characteristics.
Article
Full-text available
The presence of a network of areas in the parietal and premotor cortices, which are active both during action execution and observation, suggests that we might understand the actions of other people by activating those motor programs for making similar actions. Although neurophysiological and imaging studies show an involvement of the somatosensory cortex (SI) during action observation and execution, it is unclear whether SI is essential for understanding the somatosensory aspects of observed actions. To address this issue, we used off-line transcranial magnetic continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) just before a weight judgment task. Participants observed the right hand of an actor lifting a box and estimated its relative weight. In counterbalanced sessions, we delivered sham and active cTBS over the hand region of the left SI and, to test anatomical specificity, over the left motor cortex (M1) and the left superior parietal lobule (SPL). Active cTBS over SI, but not over M1 or SPL, impaired task performance relative to sham cTBS. Moreover, active cTBS delivered over SI just before participants were asked to evaluate the weight of a bouncing ball did not alter performance compared to sham cTBS. These findings indicate that SI is essential for extracting somatosensory features (heavy/light) from observed action kinematics and suggest a prominent role of SI in action understanding.
Article
Full-text available
Multi-domain training potentially increases the likelihood of overlap in processing components with transfer tasks and everyday life, and hence is a promising training approach for older adults. To empirically test this, 84 healthy older adults aged 64 to 75 years were randomly assigned to one of three single-domain training conditions (inhibition, visuomotor function, spatial navigation) or to the simultaneous training of all three cognitive functions (multi-domain training condition). All participants trained on an iPad at home for 50 training sessions. Before and after the training, and at a 6-month follow-up measurement, cognitive functioning and training transfer were assessed with a neuropsychological test battery including tests targeting the trained functions (near transfer) and transfer to executive functions (far transfer: attentional control, working memory, speed). Participants in all four training groups showed a linear increase in training performance over the 50 training sessions. Using a latent difference score model, the multi-domain training group, compared with the single-domain training groups, showed more improvement on the far transfer attentional control composite. Individuals with initially lower baseline performance showed higher training-related improvements, indicating that training compensated for lower initial cognitive performance. At the 6-month follow-up, performance on the cognitive test battery remained stable. This is one of the first studies to investigate systematically multi-domain training including comparable single-domain training conditions. Our findings suggest that multi-domain training enhances attentional control involved in handling several different tasks at the same time, an aspect in everyday life that is particularly challenging for older people.
Article
Full-text available
Since its infancy embodied cognition research has fundamentally changed our understanding of how action, perception, and cognition relate to and interact with each other. Ideas from different schools of thought have led to controversial theories and a unifying framework is still being debated. In this perspective paper, we argue that in order to improve our understanding of embodied cognition and to take significant steps toward a comprehensive framework, a lifespan approach is mandatory. Given that most established theories have been developed and tested in the adult population, which is characterized by relatively robust and stable sensorimotor and cognitive abilities, we deem it questionable whether embodied cognition effects found in this population are representative for different life stages such as childhood or the elderly. In contrast to adulthood, childhood is accompanied by a rapid increase of sensorimotor and cognitive skills, and the old age by a decline of such capacities. Hence, sensorimotor and cognitive capacities, as well as their interactions, are more fragile at both extremes of the lifespan, thereby offering a unique window into the emergence of embodied cognition effects and age-related differences therein. A lifespan approach promises to make a major contribution toward a unifying and comprehensive theory of embodied cognition that is valid across the lifespan and ‘gets better with age.’
Article
Full-text available
Imitation involves matching the visual representation of another's action onto the observer's own motor program for that action. However, there has been some debate regarding the extent to which imitation is "automatic"-that is, occurs without attention. Participants performed a perceptual load task in which images of finger movements were presented as distractors. Responses to target letter stimuli were performed via finger movements that could be imitatively compatible (requiring the same finger movement) or incompatible with the distractor movements: In this common stimulus-response compatibility manipulation, the stimulus set comprises images of the response movements, producing an imitative compatibility effect. Attention to the distractor movements was manipulated by altering perceptual load through increasing the number of nontarget letter stimuli. If imitation requires attention, then at high perceptual load, imitative compatibility should not affect response times. In contrast, imitative compatibility influenced response times at high perceptual load, demonstrating that distractor movements were processed. However, the compatibility effect was reversed, suggesting that longer response times at high perceptual load tap into an inhibitory stage of distractor movement processing. A follow-up experiment manipulating temporal delay between targets and distractor movements supported this explanation. Further experiments confirmed that nonmovement distractor stimuli in the same configuration produced standard perceptual load effects and that results were not solely due to effector compatibility. These data suggest that imitation can occur without attention. (PsycINFO Database Record
Article
Sensorimotor experiences can modify the internal models for action. These modifications can govern the discrepancies between predicted and actual sensory consequences, such as distinguishing self- and other-generated actions. This distinction may also contribute toward the inhibition of movement interference, which is strongly associated with the coupling of observed and executed actions. Therefore, movement interference could be mediated by the sensorimotor experiences underlying the self-other distinction. The present study examined the impact of sensorimotor experiences on involuntary movement interference (motor contagion). Participants were required to complete a motor contagion paradigm in which they executed horizontal arm movements while observing congruent (horizontal) or incongruent (vertical) arm movements of a model. This task was completed before and after a training protocol in which participants executed the same horizontal arm movements in the absence of the model stimuli. Different groups of participants trained with or without vision of their moving limb. Analysis of participants who were predisposed to motor contagion (involuntary movement interference during the observation of incongruent movements) revealed that the no vision group continued to demonstrate contagion at post-training, although the vision group did not. We propose that the vision group were able to integrate the visual afferent information with an internal model for action, which effectively refines the ability to match self-produced afferent and efferent sources of information during response-execution. This enhanced matching allows for a better distinction between self and other, which in turn, mediates the inhibition of motor contagion.
Article
The goal of the present study was to test the influence of the spatial and temporal dynamics of observed manual actions on infants’ action prediction. Twelve-month-old infants were presented with reach-and-transport actions performed by a human agent. Movement distance, duration, and – resulting from the two – movement velocity were systematically varied. Action prediction was measured via the latency of gaze arrival at target in relation to agent’s hand. The results showed a general effect of all parameters on the infants’ perception of goal-directed actions: Infants were more likely to predict the action goal the longer the movement distance was, the longer the movement duration was, and the slower the movement velocity was. In addition, they were more likely to predict the goal of a reaching than a transport action. The present findings extent previous findings by showing that infants are not only sensitive to differences in distances, durations, and velocities at early age but that these factors have a strong impact on the prediction of the goal of observed actions.
Article
Motor information conveyed by viewing the kinematics of an agent's action helps to predict how the action will unfold. Still, how observed movement kinematics is processed in the brain remains to be clarified. Here, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to determine at which frequency and where in the brain, the neural activity is coupled with the kinematics of executed and observed motor actions. Whole-scalp MEG signals were recorded from 11 right-handed healthy adults while they were executing (Self) or observing (Other) similar goal-directed hand actions performed by an actor placed in front of them. Actions consisted of pinching with the right hand green foam-made pieces mixed in a heap with pieces of other colors placed on a table, and put them in a plastic pot on the right side of the heap. Subjects' and actor's forefinger movements were monitored with an accelerometer. The coherence between movement acceleration and MEG signals was computed at the sensor level. Then, cortical sources coherent with movement acceleration were identified with Dynamic Imaging of Coherent Sources. Statistically significant sensor-level coherence peaked at the movement frequency (F0) and its first harmonic (F1) in both movement conditions. Apart from visual cortices, statistically significant local maxima of coherence were observed in the right posterior superior temporal gyrus (F0), bilateral superior parietal lobule (F0 or F1) and primary sensorimotor cortex (F0 or F1) in both movement conditions. These results suggest that observing others' actions engages the viewer's brain in a similar kinematics-related manner as during own action execution. These findings bring new insights into how human brain activity covaries with essential features of observed movements of others. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.