Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T21:15:56.011Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Complex object-related actions: Structure, meaning, and context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2007

LAUREL J. BUXBAUM
LAUREL J. BUXBAUM
Affiliation:
Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

All object-related actions are complex. Even the “simplest” of reach to grasp movements requires finely honed coordination of the muscles of the arm, hand, and fingers; is dependent upon exquisitely tuned feedforward and feedback mechanisms for motor control; is honed by learning; and is influenced by such cognitive factors as task goals. In this sense, then, the title of this Symposium, Complex Object-Related Actions, contains a redundancy. It is also true, however, that (as compared with, say, memory, language, executive function, attention, and spatial skills) the study of skilled action has been neglected within the fields of neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience. One reason for this finding may be that many psychologists and neuroscientists do not view action as “cognitive” (Rosenbaum, 2005). As the work presented here illustrates, there is ample recent evidence suggesting that this view is inaccurate. We retain the word “Complex” in the title of the Symposium to emphasize the cognitive, psychological, and memory-related aspects of action that deserve broader interest. We suspect that the organizational principles and mechanisms that underlie cognition in many other domains will be found to play a role in the action system as well.

Type
SYMPOSIA
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 13 , Issue 6 , November 2007 , pp. 993 - 996
Copyright
© 2007 The International Neuropsychological Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allport, D.A. (1985). Distributed memory, modular subsystems and dysphagia. In S.K. Newman & R. Epstein (Eds.), Current perspectives in dysphagia (pp. 32–60). Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.
Barde, L.H.F., Buxbaum, L.J., & Moll, A.D. (2007, this issue). Abnormal reliance on object structure in apraxics' learning of novel object-related actions. Journal of the International Neurological Society, 13, 997–1008.Google Scholar
Bickerton, W.-L., Humphreys, G.W., & Riddoch, M.J. (2007, this issue). The case of the unfamiliar implement: Schema-based over-riding of semantic knowledge from objects in everyday action. Journal of the International Neurological Society, 13, 1035–1046.Google Scholar
Bub, D.N., Masson, M.E., & Cree, G.S. (2007). Evocation of functional and volumetric gestural knowledge by objects and words. Cognition, [Epub ahead of print].Google Scholar
Buxbaum, L.J. (2001). Ideomotor apraxia: A call to action. Neurocase, 7, 445–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buxbaum, L.J. & Saffran, E.M. (2002). Knowledge of object manipulation and object function: Dissociations in apraxic and non-apraxic subjects. Brain and Language, 82, 179–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caramazza, A. & Shelton, J.F. (1998). Domain-specific knowledge systems in the brain: The animate-inanimate distinction. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 6, 83–97.Google Scholar
Castiello, U. (1996). Grasping a fruit: Selection for action. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 22, 582–603.Google Scholar
Craighero, L., Bello, A., Fadiga, L., & Rizzolatti, G. (2002). Hand action preparation influences responses to hand pictures. Neuropsychologia, 40, 492–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creem-Regehr, S.H., Dilda, V., Vicchrilli, A.E., Federer, F., & Lee, J.N. (2007, this issue). The influence of complex action knowledge on representations of novel graspable objects: Evidence from fMRI. Journal of the International Neurological Society, 13, 1009–1020.Google Scholar
Desmarais, G., Pensa, M.C., Dixon, M.J., & Roy, E.A. (2007, this issue). The importance of object similarity in the production and identification of actions associated with objects. Journal of the International Neurological Society, 13, 1021–1034.Google Scholar
Duncan, J. (1993). Selection of input and goal in the control of behaviour. In A. Baddeley & L. Weiskrantz (Eds.), Attention: Selection, awareness and control (pp. 53–71). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Frey, S.H. (2007). What puts the how in where? Tool use and the divided visual streams hypothesis. Cortex, 43, 368–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, J. & Flash, T. (2007). Task-dependent selection of grasp kinematics and stiffness in human object manipulation. Cortex, 43, 444–460.Google Scholar
Gibson, J.J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, acting, and knowing: Toward an ecological psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Humphreys, G.W. & Riddoch, M.J. (2001). Detection by action: Neuropsychologcal evidence for action-defined templates in search. Nature, 4, 84–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, A. & Chao, L.L. (2001). Semantic memory and the brain: Structure and processes. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 11, 194–201.Google Scholar
Michaels, C.F. & Stins, J.F. (1997). An ecological approach to stimulus-response compatibility. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Milner, A.D. & Goodale, M.A. (1995). The visual brain in action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pavese, A. & Buxbaum, L. (2002). Action matters: The role of action plans and object affordances in selection for action. Visual Cognition, 9, 559–590.Google Scholar
Plaut, D. (1996). Relearning after damage in connectionist networks: Toward a theory of rehabilitation. Brain and Language, 52, 25–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzolatti, G. & Matelli, M. (2003). Two different streams form the dorsal visual system: Anatomy and functions. Experimental Brain Research, 153, 146–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenbaum, D.A. (2005). The Cinderella of psychology: The neglect of motor control in the science of mental life and behavior. American Psychology, 60, 308–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, M. & Ellis, R. (1998). On the relations between seen objects and components of potential actions. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 24, 830–846.Google Scholar
Ungerleider, L.G. & Mishkin, M. (1982). Two cortical visual systems. In D.J. Ingle, M.A. Goodale, & R.J.W. Manfield (Eds.), Analysis of visual behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.