Gillmeister Helge, Catmur Caroline, Liepelt Roman, Brass Marcel, Heyes Cecilia
University College London, UK.
Brain Res. 2008 Jun 27;1217:157-70. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2007.12.076. Epub 2008 Apr 15.
Two important dimensions of action are the movement and the body part with which the movement is effected. Experiment 1 tested whether automatic imitation is sensitive to the body part dimension of action. We found that hand and foot movements were selectively primed by observation of a corresponding, task-irrelevant effector in motion. Experiment 2 used this body part priming effect to investigate the role of sensorimotor learning in the development of imitation. The results showed that incompatible training, in which observation of hand movements was paired with execution of foot movements and vice versa, led to a greater reduction in body part priming than compatible training, in which subjects experienced typical contingencies between observation and execution of hand and foot movements. These findings are consistent with the assumption that overt behavioral imitation is mediated by the mirror neuron system, which is somatotopically organized. Our results also support the hypothesis that the development of imitation and the mirror neuron system are driven by correlated sensorimotor learning.
动作的两个重要维度是动作本身以及执行该动作的身体部位。实验1测试了自动模仿是否对动作的身体部位维度敏感。我们发现，通过观察一个相应的、与任务无关的运动效应器的运动，手部和脚部动作会被选择性地启动。实验2利用这种身体部位启动效应来研究感觉运动学习在模仿发展中的作用。结果表明，不相容训练（即观察手部动作与执行脚部动作配对，反之亦然）比相容训练（即受试者体验到手部和脚部动作观察与执行之间的典型关联）导致身体部位启动的减少更大。这些发现与以下假设一致：公开的行为模仿是由镜像神经元系统介导的，该系统按躯体定位组织。我们的结果也支持以下假设：模仿和镜像神经元系统的发展是由相关的感觉运动学习驱动的。
