Cohn Neil, Paczynski Martin, Kutas Marta
Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA; Tilburg Center for Cognition and Communication, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Wright State Research Institute, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA.
Brain Cogn. 2017 Dec;119:1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2017.09.001. Epub 2017 Sep 9.
Research across domains has suggested that agents, the doers of actions, have a processing advantage over patients, the receivers of actions. We hypothesized that agents as "event builders" for discrete actions (e.g., throwing a ball, punching) build on cues embedded in their preparatory postures (e.g., reaching back an arm to throw or punch) that lead to (predictable) culminating actions, and that these cues afford frontloading of event structure processing. To test this hypothesis, we compared event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to averbal comic panels depicting preparatory agents (ex. reaching back an arm to punch) that cued specific actions with those to non-preparatory agents (ex. arm to the side) and patients that did not cue any specific actions. We also compared subsequent completed action panels (ex. agent punching patient) across conditions, where we expected an inverse pattern of ERPs indexing the differential costs of processing completed actions asa function of preparatory cues. Preparatory agents evoked a greater frontal positivity (600-900ms) relative to non-preparatory agents and patients, while subsequent completed actions panels following non-preparatory agents elicited a smaller frontal positivity (600-900ms). These results suggest that preparatory (vs. non-) postures may differentially impact the processing of agents and subsequent actions in real time.
跨领域研究表明，施事者（即动作的执行者）在信息处理方面比受事者（即动作的接受者）具有优势。我们假设，作为离散动作（如扔球、拳击）“事件构建者”的施事者，会利用其准备姿势中所蕴含的线索（如为扔球或拳击而向后伸展手臂），这些线索会导向（可预测的）最终动作，并且这些线索为事件结构处理提供了前置加载。为了验证这一假设，我们将与事件相关的脑电信号（ERP）进行了比较，这些信号来自于描绘准备动作的施事者（如向后伸展手臂准备拳击）的无声漫画面板，这些面板暗示了特定动作，同时也与未准备动作的施事者（如手臂放在身体一侧）以及未暗示任何特定动作的受事者的漫画面板进行了比较。我们还比较了不同条件下随后完成动作的面板（如施事者拳击受事者），我们预期ERP会呈现相反的模式，以此来索引处理完成动作的不同成本，该成本是准备线索的函数。相对于未准备动作的施事者和受事者，准备动作的施事者诱发了更大的额叶正波（600 - 900毫秒），而未准备动作的施事者之后的完成动作面板诱发了较小的额叶正波（600 - 900毫秒）。这些结果表明，准备（与未准备相对）姿势可能会实时地对施事者及后续动作的处理产生不同影响。
