Department of Physical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, via Cinzia, 81100, Naples, Italy.
Exp Brain Res. 2013 Mar;225(1):11-36. doi: 10.1007/s00221-012-3344-9. Epub 2012 Dec 11.
The notion of synergy enables one to provide simplified descriptions of hand actions. It has been used in a number of different meanings ranging from kinematic and dynamic synergies to postural and temporal postural synergies. However, relatively little is known about how representing an action by synergies might take into account the possibility to have a hierarchical and multiple action representation. This is a key aspect for action representation as it has been characterized by action theorists and cognitive neuroscientists. Thus, the aim of the present paper is to investigate whether and to what extent a hierarchical and multiple action representation can be obtained by a synergy approach. To this purpose, we took advantage of representing hand action as a linear combination of temporal postural synergies (TPSs), but on the assumption that TPSs have a tree-structured organization. In a tree-structured organization, a hand action representation can involve a TPS only if the ancestors of the synergy in the tree are themselves involved in the action representation. The results showed that this organization is enough to force a multiple representation of hand actions in terms of synergies which are hierarchically organized.
协同作用的概念可以用来简化对手部动作的描述。它已经在许多不同的意义上被使用，包括运动学和动力学协同作用、姿势和时间姿势协同作用。然而，对于如何通过协同作用来表示一个动作，以考虑到可能具有层次化和多重动作表示的可能性，人们知之甚少。这是动作表示的一个关键方面，因为它已经被动作理论家认知神经科学家所描述。因此，本文的目的是研究通过协同作用的方法是否以及在多大程度上可以获得层次化和多重动作表示。为此，我们利用时间姿势协同作用（TPS）的线性组合来表示手部动作，但假设 TPS 具有树状结构组织。在树状结构组织中，只有当树中的协同作用的祖先本身参与了动作表示，手部动作的表示才可以涉及到 TPS。结果表明，这种组织足以迫使手部动作以协同作用的方式进行多重表示，而协同作用本身是按层次组织的。
