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Observation of Point-Light-Walker Locomotion Induces Motor Resonance When Explicitly Represented; An EEG Source Analysis Study

Authors :
Alberto Inuggi
Claudio Campus
Roberta Vastano
Ghislain Saunier
Alejo Keuroghlanian
Thierry Pozzo
Source :
Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 9 (2018)
Publication Year :
2018
Publisher :
Frontiers Media S.A., 2018.

Abstract

Understanding human motion, to infer the goal of others' actions, is thought to involve the observer's motor repertoire. One prominent class of actions, the human locomotion, has been object of several studies, all focused on manipulating the shape of degraded human figures like point-light walker (PLW) stimuli, represented as walking on the spot. Nevertheless, since the main goal of the locomotor function is to displace the whole body from one position to the other, these stimuli might not fully represent a goal-directed action and thus might not be able to induce the same motor resonance mechanism expected when observing a natural locomotion. To explore this hypothesis, we recorded the event-related potentials (ERP) of canonical/scrambled and translating/centered PLWs decoding. We individuated a novel ERP component (N2c) over central electrodes, around 435 ms after stimulus onset, for translating compared to centered PLW, only when the canonical shape was preserved. Consistently with our hypothesis, sources analysis associated this component to the activation of trunk and lower legs primary sensory-motor and supplementary motor areas. These results confirm the role of own motor repertoire in processing human action and suggest that ERP can detect the associated motor resonance only when the human figure is explicitly involved in performing a meaningful action.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
16641078
Volume :
9
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Frontiers in Psychology
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.1d9e1a5641c44a9aa7d28b29b0c3eeb6
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00303