Bunlon Frédérique, Marshall Peter J, Quandt Lorna C, Bouquet Cedric A
University of Poitiers, CNRS, Poitiers, France.
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2015 Mar 20;10(3):e0121617. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121617. eCollection 2015.
According to the ideomotor theory, actions are represented in terms of their perceptual effects, offering a solution for the correspondence problem of imitation (how to translate the observed action into a corresponding motor output). This effect-based coding of action is assumed to be acquired through action-effect learning. Accordingly, performing an action leads to the integration of the perceptual codes of the action effects with the motor commands that brought them about. While ideomotor theory is invoked to account for imitation, the influence of action-effect learning on imitative behavior remains unexplored. In two experiments, imitative performance was measured in a reaction time task following a phase of action-effect acquisition. During action-effect acquisition, participants freely executed a finger movement (index or little finger lifting), and then observed a similar (compatible learning) or a different (incompatible learning) movement. In Experiment 1, finger movements of left and right hands were presented as action-effects during acquisition. In Experiment 2, only right-hand finger movements were presented during action-effect acquisition and in the imitation task the observed hands were oriented orthogonally to participants' hands in order to avoid spatial congruency effects. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that imitative performance was improved after compatible learning, compared to incompatible learning. In Experiment 2, although action-effect learning involved perception of finger movements of right hand only, imitative capabilities of right- and left-hand finger movements were equally affected. These results indicate that an observed movement stimulus processed as the effect of an action can later prime execution of that action, confirming the ideomotor approach to imitation. We further discuss these findings in relation to previous studies of action-effect learning and in the framework of current ideomotor approaches to imitation.
根据观念运动理论，动作是根据其感知效果来表征的，这为模仿的对应问题（如何将观察到的动作转化为相应的运动输出）提供了解决方案。这种基于效果的动作编码被认为是通过动作-效果学习获得的。因此，执行一个动作会导致动作效果的感知编码与产生这些效果的运动指令整合在一起。虽然观念运动理论被用来解释模仿，但动作-效果学习对模仿行为的影响仍未得到探索。在两个实验中，在动作-效果习得阶段之后，通过反应时任务来测量模仿表现。在动作-效果习得阶段，参与者自由地执行一个手指动作（食指或小指抬起），然后观察一个相似的（相容学习）或不同的（不相容学习）动作。在实验1中，习得阶段呈现的动作效果是左右手指的动作。在实验2中，动作-效果习得阶段只呈现右手手指动作，并且在模仿任务中，观察到的手与参与者的手呈正交方向，以避免空间一致性效应。实验1和实验2表明，与不相容学习相比，相容学习后模仿表现得到了提高。在实验2中，虽然动作-效果学习只涉及对右手手指动作的感知，但左右手手指动作的模仿能力受到了同等程度的影响。这些结果表明，作为动作效果被处理的观察到的运动刺激随后可以启动该动作的执行，这证实了观念运动的模仿方法。我们将结合先前关于动作-效果学习的研究以及当前观念运动模仿方法的框架，进一步讨论这些发现。
