Monfardini Elisabetta, Brovelli Andrea, Boussaoud Driss, Takerkart Sylvain, Wicker Bruno
CNRS and Aix-Marseille University UMR 6193, Mediterranean Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience 31 chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13402, Marseille, France.
Neuroimage. 2008 Sep 1;42(3):1207-13. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.05.043. Epub 2008 Jul 14.
Observational learning allows individuals to acquire knowledge without incurring in the costs and risks of discovering and testing. The neural mechanisms mediating the retrieval of rules learned by observation are currently unknown. To explore this fundamental cognitive ability, we compared the brain responses when retrieving visuomotor associations learned either by observation or by individual learning. To do so, we asked eleven adults to learn two sets of arbitrary visuomotor associations: one set was learned through the observation of an expert actor while the other was learned by trial and error. During fMRI scanning, subjects were requested to retrieve the visuomotor associations previously learned under the two modalities. The conjunction analysis between the two learning conditions revealed a common brain network that included the ventral and dorsal lateral prefrontal cortices, the superior parietal lobe and the pre-SMA. This suggests the existence of a mirror-like system responsible for the storage of rules learned either by trial and error or by observation of others' actions. In addition, the pars triangularis in the right prefrontal cortex (BA45) was found to be selective for rules learned by observation. This suggests a preferential role of this area in the storage of rules learned in a social context.
观察学习使个体能够获取知识，而无需承担发现和测试所带来的成本和风险。目前尚不清楚介导通过观察学习到的规则检索的神经机制。为了探究这种基本的认知能力，我们比较了在检索通过观察或个体学习获得的视觉运动关联时的大脑反应。为此，我们让11名成年人学习两组任意的视觉运动关联：一组是通过观察专家演员学习的，另一组是通过试错学习的。在功能磁共振成像扫描期间，要求受试者检索之前在两种模式下学习到的视觉运动关联。两种学习条件之间的联合分析揭示了一个共同的脑网络，包括腹侧和背侧外侧前额叶皮层、顶上叶和前辅助运动区。这表明存在一个类似镜像的系统，负责存储通过试错或观察他人行为学到的规则。此外，发现右侧前额叶皮层（BA45）的三角部对通过观察学习到的规则具有选择性。这表明该区域在存储在社会背景下学到的规则方面具有优先作用。
