Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université catholique de Louvain, Place Cardinal Mercier 10, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Institute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain, Avenue E. Mounier 53, Brussels 1200, Belgium.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2023 Oct 13;18(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsad046.
Observing other people acting activates imitative motor plans in the observer. Whether, and if so when and how, such 'effector-specific motor simulation' contributes to action recognition remains unclear. We report that individuals born without upper limbs (IDs)-who cannot covertly imitate upper-limb movements-are significantly less accurate at recognizing degraded (but not intact) upper-limb than lower-limb actions (i.e. point-light animations). This finding emphasizes the need to reframe the current controversy regarding the role of effector-specific motor simulation in action recognition: instead of focusing on the dichotomy between motor and non-motor theories, the field would benefit from new hypotheses specifying when and how effector-specific motor simulation may supplement core action recognition processes to accommodate the full variety of action stimuli that humans can recognize.
观察他人的行为会激活观察者的模仿运动计划。然而，这种“效应器特异性运动模拟”是否以及何时以及如何有助于动作识别尚不清楚。我们报告说，天生没有上肢的个体（ID）-他们无法进行隐蔽的上肢运动模仿-对手臂动作（即点光动画）的识别能力明显低于腿部动作（即点光动画）的识别能力。这一发现强调了需要重新构建当前关于效应器特异性运动模拟在动作识别中的作用的争议：与其关注运动和非运动理论之间的二分法，该领域将受益于新的假设，这些假设指定了何时以及如何效应器特异性运动模拟可以补充核心动作识别过程，以适应人类可以识别的各种动作刺激。
