Gesierich Benno, Bruzzo Angela, Ottoboni Giovanni, Finos Livio
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Corso Bettini, Rovereto, Italy.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2008 Jun;128(2):324-30. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.03.006. Epub 2008 Apr 28.
Gaze shifts and fixations appear to be proactive in both action execution and observation. We investigated a dependency of anticipatory gaze behaviour by using a block stacking task. Blocks were rectangles depicted on a computer screen and the stacking movements were controlled via computer mouse. Subjects either had to execute the task or had to observe it made by the experimenter, or by the computer. The dependency of gaze behaviour on the visibility of a virtual effector, the visibility of the actor, and the nature of the actor was tested by measuring eye movements. Anticipatory eye movements were predominant when the subjects themselves executed the task. During action observation, gaze behaviour did neither depend on the visibility nor depend on the nature of the actor. However, big variability was found between the subjects suggesting the use of two different strategies in action observation: some subjects were mainly tracking the blocks during stacking movements; others were strongly anticipating. We suggest that gaze behaviour during action observation is not predetermined by rigid neural circuitry, but strongly depends on the context. The possibility to explain the causal mechanism, as well as the ownership of the action may be crucial preconditions for anticipatory gaze behaviour.
在动作执行和观察过程中，目光转移和注视似乎都是主动的。我们通过使用积木堆叠任务来研究预期注视行为的依赖性。积木是电脑屏幕上描绘的矩形，堆叠动作通过电脑鼠标控制。受试者要么必须执行任务，要么必须观察实验者或电脑执行任务。通过测量眼球运动来测试注视行为对虚拟效应器的可见性、行动者的可见性以及行动者性质的依赖性。当受试者自己执行任务时，预期性眼球运动占主导。在动作观察过程中，注视行为既不依赖于行动者的可见性，也不依赖于行动者的性质。然而，在受试者之间发现了很大的变异性，这表明在动作观察中使用了两种不同的策略：一些受试者在堆叠动作过程中主要跟踪积木；另一些则强烈预期。我们认为，动作观察过程中的注视行为并非由僵化的神经回路预先决定，而是强烈依赖于情境。解释因果机制以及动作的所有权的可能性可能是预期注视行为的关键前提。
