Bach Patric, Gunter Thomas C, Knoblich Gunther, Prinz Wolfgang, Friederici Angela D
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Soc Neurosci. 2009;4(3):212-32. doi: 10.1080/17470910802362546. Epub 2008 Nov 20.
The understanding of actions of tool use depends on the motor act that is performed and on the function of the objects involved in the action. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the processes that derive both kinds of information in a task in which inserting actions had to be judged. The actions were presented as two consecutive frames, one showing an effector/instrument and the other showing a potential target object of the action. Two mismatches were possible. An orientation mismatch occurred when the spatial object properties were not consistent with a motor act of insertion being performed (i.e., different orientations of insert and slot). A functional mismatch happened when the instrument (e.g., screwdriver) would usually not be applied to the target object (e.g., keyhole). The order in which instrument and target object were presented was also varied. The two kinds of mismatch gave rise to similar but not identical negativities in the latency range of the N400 followed by a positive modulation. The results indicate that the motor act and the function of the objects are derived by two at least partially different subprocesses and become integrated into a common representation of the observed action.
对工具使用动作的理解取决于所执行的运动行为以及该动作中所涉及物体的功能。我们使用事件相关电位（ERP）来研究在一个需要判断插入动作的任务中获取这两类信息的过程。动作以两个连续的画面呈现，一个展示执行动作的效应器/工具，另一个展示该动作的潜在目标物体。可能出现两种不匹配情况。当空间物体属性与正在执行的插入运动行为不一致时（即插入物和插槽的方向不同），会出现方向不匹配。当工具（如螺丝刀）通常不会应用于目标物体（如钥匙孔）时，会出现功能不匹配。工具和目标物体呈现的顺序也有所变化。这两种不匹配在N400潜伏期范围内产生了相似但不完全相同的负波，随后是一个正性调制。结果表明，运动行为和物体的功能是由至少部分不同的子过程推导出来的，并整合到对观察到的动作的共同表征中。
