Tesis sobre el tema "Action"

This thesis investigates how a robot can use action generation mechanisms to recognize the action of an observed actor in an on-line manner i.e., before the completion of the action. Towards this end, Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMP), an action generation method proposed for imitation, are modified to recognize the actions of an actor. Specifically, a human actor performed three different reaching actions to two different objects. Three DMP'
s, each corresponding to a different reaching action, were trained using this data. The proposed method used an object-centered coordinate system to define the variables for the action, eliminating the difference between the actor and the robot. During testing, the robot simulated action trajectories by its learned DMPs and compared the resulting trajectories against the observed one. The error between the simulated and the observed trajectories were integrated into a recognition signal, over which recognition was done. The proposed method was applied on the iCub humanoid robot platform using an active motion capture device for sensing. The results showed that the system was able to recognize actions with high accuracy as they unfold in time. Moreover, the feasibility of the approach is demonstrated in an interactive game between the robot and a human.

We think less than we think. My thesis moves from this suspicion to show that standard accounts of intentional action can't explain the whole of agency. Causalist accounts such as Davidson's and Bratman's, according to which an action can be intentional only if it is caused by a particular mental state of the agent, don't work for every kind of action. So-called automatic actions, effortless performances over which the agent doesn't deliberate, and to which she doesn't need to pay attention, constitute exceptions to the causalist framework, or so I argue in this thesis. Not all actions are the result of a mental struggle, painful hesitation, or the weighting of evidence. Through practice, many performances become second nature. Think of familiar cases such as one's morning routines and habits: turning on the radio, brushing your teeth. Think of the highly skilled performances involved in sport and music: Jarrett's improvised piano playing, the footballer's touch. Think of agents' spontaneous reactions to their environment: ducking a blow, smiling. Psychological research has long acknowledged the distinctiveness and importance of automatic actions, while philosophy has so far explained them together with the rest of agency. Intuition tells us that automatic actions are intentional actions of ours all the same (I have run a survey which shows that this intuition is widely shared): not only our own autonomous deeds for which we are held responsible, but also necessary components in the execution and satisfaction of our general plans and goals. But do standard causal accounts deliver on the intentionality of automatic actions? I think not. Because, in automatic cases, standard appeals to intentions, beliefs, desires, and psychological states in general ring hollow. We just act: we don't think, either consciously or unconsciously. On the reductive side, Davidson's view can't but appeal to, at best, unconscious psychological states, the presence and causal role of which is, I argue, inferred from the needs of a theory, rather than from evidence in the world. On the non-reductive side, Bratman agrees, with his refutation of the Simple View, that we can't just attach an intention to every action that we want to explain. But Bratman’s own Single Phenomenon View, appealing to the mysterious notion of 'motivational potential', merely acknowledges the need for refinement without actually providing one. So I propose my own account of intentional action, the 'guidance view', according to which automatic actions are intentional: differently from Davidson and Bratman, who only offer necessary conditions in order to avoid the problem of causal deviance, I offer a full-blown account: E's phi-ing is intentional if and only If phi-ing is under E's guidance. This account resembles one developed by Frankfurt, with the crucial difference that Frankfurt – taking 'acting with an intention' and 'acting intentionally' to be synonymous – thinks that guidance is sufficient only for some movement being an action, but not for some movement being an intentional action. I argue that, on the other hand, Frankfurt's concept of guidance can be developed so that it is sufficient for intentional action too. In Chapter One I present and defend my definition of ‘automatic action’. In Chapter Two I show that such understanding of automatic actions finds confirmation in empirical psychology. In Chapter Three I show that Davidson's reductive account of intentional action does not work for automatic actions. In Chapter Four I show that the two most influential non-reductive accounts of intentional action, the Simple View and Bratman's Single Phenomenon View, don't work either. And in Chapter Five I put forward and defend my positive thesis, the 'guidance view'. Also, in the Appendix I present the findings of my survey on the intentionality of automatic actions.

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In this article, was analyzed the capacity of valuation and forecast on the main stock investment funds in the Brazilian market, using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), the Fama e French (1993) factor model and the Carhart (1997) four-factor model. According to the results, we have a better performance of the CAPM vis-Ã-vis the factor models, even for the investment funds that over perform the market. This result can be seen as an evidence of the necessity to develop a factor model a la Fama and French, but specific for investment funds.
Neste estudo foi analisada a capacidade de apreÃamento e previsÃo de retorno para os principais fundos de investimento em aÃÃes no mercado brasileiro, utilizando o modelo Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), o modelo de trÃs fatores desenvolvido por Fama e French (1993) e o modelo de quatro fatores apresentado por Carhart (1997). Os resultados mostram uma melhor performance do CAPM vis-Ã-vis os demais modelos de fatores usados, mesmo para fundos de investimento que tenham âsuperado o mercadoâ. Esta pode ser uma evidÃncia da necessidade de se derivar um modelo de fatores a la Fama e French, mas especÃfico para fundos de investimento.

Social interaction is an essential part of the human experience and actions are the primary means by which humans interact with the surrounding world. The ability to recognize and understand other people’s actions is necessary for an efficient interaction with other agents. Our motor system can promptly and accurately coordinate these forms of interactions in our daily activity. However, how the brain is able to produce such appropriate output has yet to be fully understood. The present work aims at unveiling the processes taking place in the motor system while observing actions of interactive agents and action calling for an (interactive) involvement of the observer. The core argument is to explore the flexibility of the motor system when preparing identical and non-identical responses in complex realistic situations, and to test the automaticity of these processes by directly investigating the role played by visuospatial attention during action observation. The introductory section of this thesis will first provide an overview of the state of the art regarding the mechanism that could be at the basis of the comprehension of other’s actions, that is the ‘mirror mechanism’ (Chapter 1). Mirror neurons are neural cells which activate both during the execution of an action and during the observation of the same action performed by another individual. From their first discovery in the premotor cortex of the macaque brain in the early nineties (Di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Gallese and Rizzolatti, 1992), these visuomotor neurons have been extensively studied both in primates and in humans. Chapter 1 will review evidence on the existence of such mirror mechanism and on its basic properties and anatomy, with a particular focus on the human literature concerned with the Action Observation System (AOS). Convergent evidence suggests that actions are coded in the observer’s brain in such a way that resembles the actual execution of the action. As a result, an embodied simulation (i.e., from the inside) would allow to understand the observed action through the onlooker’s own motor experience. However, to simulate the actions of other people is not always the best strategy to interact with them. Indeed, we are often required to perform actions which differ from those observed. Chapter 2 will summarize recent neurophysiological findings suggesting that the human brain is able to overcome the imitative bias in favor of non-identical responses which are appropriate to the context requirements. A particular focus will be given to the literature on complementary actions, namely a type of social interactions in which the involved agents have to perform incongruent responses to reach a common goal. Put simply, it seems that while the human motor system is prone to simulate other’s action, this imitative tendency can be modulated according to the context. However, whether top-down factors might play a role in determining the embodied simulation is still controversial. In Chapter 3 a review of the literature in which the automaticity of the visuo-motor transformation has been questioned will be presented. Overall, it emerges that top-down factors, such as visuospatial attention, may influence the motor simulation of observed actions. The second part of the present thesis concerns the experimental work I undertook. Chapter 4 provides a description of the general methodology common to the experimental studies conducted with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) coupled with electromyographic (EMG) registration to measure corticospinal excitability modulations during action observation. In the first experiment (Chapter 5) a novel paradigm to study complementary actions at the level of multiple effectors will be described. Participants were presented with a soccer player kicking a ball toward them, thus implicitly requiring their response as to parry the approaching ball. Control conditions showing lateral kicks, mimicked kicks, and the ball still in penalty area were also included. This paradigm was adopted to investigate the time-course of imitative and complementary responses in lower and upper limbs. In a subsequent experiment presented in Chapter 6, a similar paradigm was adopted, but crucially it included a condition in which the imitative and the complementary responses were simultaneously elicited in the observers’ motor system. This allowed to disentangle the contribution of different levels of motor coding – namely, kinematic, predictive and response coding – during action observation. Chapters 7 and 8 will report on two experiments aimed at clarifying the influence of spatial attention allocation during observation of actions eliciting (or not) a complementary response. In particular, in Chapter 7 participants were presented with action sequences evoking a complementary gesture, such as picking up a mug placed in the video foreground, when an individual was inviting them to do so. Notably, the observed and required actions were mismatched in order to investigate the observers’ spontaneous unfolding of different motor activations. Crucially, spatial attention allocation toward specific parts of the visual scene was manipulated by means of the sudden appearance of a red dot, and responses were recorded both at a behavioral (eye-tracking) and at a neurophysiological level. In a further experiment (Chapter 8), the allocation of attention toward parts of the visual scene was modulated by means of the actor’s gaze direction, which represents a more ecologically-valid manipulation. This experimental work shows the role of spatial attention in simulation and reciprocity, thus promoting a more complete and integrated understanding on the role of top-down factors in action observation. A general discussion (Chapter 9), contextualizing the results obtained by the studies presented in the present thesis will follow. Taken together, these studies will help to better define how the motor system flexibly and dynamically modulates its activity during the course of action observation. Moreover, the present work could broadening our view on action observation processes in social contexts, towards the definition of a more complete account.
Le interazioni sociali rappresentano un aspetto essenziale dell’esperienza umana, e le azioni rappresentano il mezzo principale attraverso cui gli esseri umani interagiscono con il mondo circostante. L’abilità di riconoscere e comprendere le azioni altrui è necessaria per garantire un’efficace interazione con altri individui. Nella vita quotidiana il sistema motorio è in grado di coordinare queste forme di interazione sociale con prontezza e accuratezza. Tuttavia, come il nostro cervello sia capace di produrre risposte così appropriate deve essere ancora pienamente compreso. L’obiettivo della presente tesi consiste nell’indagare i processi che hanno luogo nel sistema motorio durante l’osservazione di azioni, e in particolare nel caso di azioni che richiedono un coinvolgimento (interattivo) dell’osservatore. L’argomento principale che verrà trattato riguarda proprio la flessibilità del sistema motorio nel preparare azioni simili o dissimili rispetto a quanto osservato in situazioni realistiche. Inoltre, il presente lavoro ha lo scopo di verificare l’automaticità di questi processi, esaminando direttamente il ruolo giocato dall’attenzione visuospaziale durante l’osservazione di azioni. La parte introduttiva della presente tesi fornirà una panoramica sullo stato dell’arte riguardo il meccanismo che potrebbe essere alla base della comprensione delle azioni altrui, ossia il ‘meccanismo specchio’ (Capitolo 1). I neuroni specchio sono cellule neurali che si attivano sia durante l’esecuzione, che durante l’osservazione di una stessa azione compiuta da un altro individuo. Dalla loro prima scoperta nella corteccia premotoria della scimmia (Macaca nemestrina) all’inizio degli anni Novanta (Di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Gallese and Rizzolatti, 1992), questi neuroni visuo-motori sono stati estensivamente studiati sia nei primati che nell’uomo. Nel Capitolo 1 verrà quindi presentata una rassegna delle prove a favore dell’esistenza di tale meccanismo specchio, nonché sulle sue proprietà e basi anatomiche. Una particolare attenzione verrà data alla letteratura relativa agli studi condotti sull’uomo, approfondendo le evidenze riguardanti il Sistema di Osservazione dell’Azione (AOS) acquisite tramite l’uso di diverse metodologie. Risultati convergenti suggeriscono che le azioni vengano codificate nel cervello dell’osservatore in modo tale da replicare l’effettiva esecuzione dell’azione. Pertanto, una simulazione incarnata (dall’interno) permetterebbe di comprendere le azioni osservate tramite l’esperienza motoria propria dell’osservatore. Tuttavia, simulare le azioni altrui non è sempre la migliore strategia per interagire con essi. Spesso, invece, è necessario mettere in atto azioni che differiscono da quelle osservate. Nel Capitolo 2 saranno riassunte evidenze in ambito neurofisiologico che suggeriscono come il cervello umano sia in grado di superare il bias imitativo in favore di risposte dissimili, che sono tuttavia appropriate alle esigenze dettate dal contesto. Un’attenzione particolare verrà data alla letteratura riguardante le azioni complementari, un tipo di interazioni sociali nelle quali gli individui coinvolti devono eseguire azioni dissimili o opposte a quelle osservate, al fine di perseguire uno scopo comune. Riassumendo, il sistema motorio umano risulta essere incline a simulare le azioni altrui, ciò nonostante questa tendenza imitativa pare possa essere modulata in funzione del contesto in cui l’azione avviene. Tuttavia, qualora fattori top-down abbiano un ruolo nel determinare la simulazione incarnata è ancora un argomento dibattuto. Nel Capitolo 3 verrà presentata una rassegna della letteratura in cui l’automaticità della trasformazione visuo-motoria è stata messa in discussione. Complessivamente, emerge come fattori top-down, quali l’attenzione visuospaziale, possano influenzare il processo di simulazione motoria delle azioni osservate. Nella seconda parte della tesi verrà descritto il lavoro sperimentale da me svolto. Il Capitolo 4 fornirà una generale descrizione della metodologia adottata e comune a tutti gli studi in cui è stata utilizzata la stimolazione magnetica transcranica (TMS) accoppiata con la registrazione elettromiografica (EMG) per misurare modulazioni dell’eccitabilità corticospinale durante l’osservazione di azioni. Nel primo esperimento (Capitolo 5) è stato utilizzato un nuovo paradigma per lo studio delle azioni complementari che coinvolge effettori multipli. Ai partecipanti è stata presentata un’azione ritraente un calciatore lanciare una palla verso di loro, richiedendo implicitamente una loro risposta al fine di parare la palla in avvicinamento. Ulteriori condizioni di controllo in cui calci laterali, calci mimati, o in cui la palla veniva presentata ferma in area di rigore sono state utilizzate. Questo paradigma è stato adottato per studiare l’andamento temporale dell’insorgere delle risposte imitative e complementari in effettori inferiori e superiori. In un successivo esperimento presentato nel Capitolo 6 è stato adottato un paradigma simile, tuttavia esso includeva una condizione nella quale le risposte imitative e complementari venivano simultaneamente elicitate nel sistema motorio dell’osservatore. Ciò ha permesso di disambiguare il contributo di differenti livelli di codifica motoria – nello specifico, cinematico, predittivo e di codifica della risposta – in funzione durante l’osservazione di azioni. I Capitoli 7 e 8 riguarderanno invece due esperimenti aventi lo scopo di chiarificare l’influenza dell’attenzione spaziale durante l’osservazione di azioni capaci di elicitare o meno una risposta complementare. In particolare, nel Capitolo 7, ai partecipanti venivano mostrate sequenze di azioni che potevano evocare una risposta complementare, quale afferrare una tazza posizionata in primo piano, quando una persona li invitava a farlo. Va notato che il movimento osservato presentava caratteristiche muscolari diverse da quello richiesto, al fine di studiare lo spontaneo manifestarsi di attivazioni motorie differenti negli osservatori. Un aspetto cruciale è che l’allocazione dell’attenzione spaziale verso specifiche parti della scena visiva veniva manipolata tramite la rapida presentazione di un pallino rosso, e le risposte sono state registrate sia a livello comportamentale (eye-tracking) che neurofisiologico. In un successivo esperimento (Capitolo 8), l’allocazione di risorse attentive verso parti della scena visiva è stata modulata tramite la direzione dello sguardo dell’attore, utilizzando quindi una manipolazione che presenta una migliore validità ecologica. Questo lavoro sperimentale ha indagato il ruolo dell’attenzione nei processi di simulazione e reciprocità, promuovendo così la definizione di una più completa e integrata comprensione del ruolo di fattori top-down nell’osservazione di azioni. Seguirà una discussione generale (Capitolo 9) volta a contestualizzare i risultati ottenuti dagli studi presentati in questa tesi. Nel complesso, questi studi aiuteranno a definire meglio come il sistema motorio sia in grado di modulare la sua attività in maniera flessibile e dinamica durante l’osservazione di azioni. Inoltre, il presente lavoro di ricerca può contribuire ad ampliare la nostra conoscenza dei processi in atto durante l’osservazione di azioni in contesti sociali, in direzione di una più completa definizione del fenomeno.

We investigate the Holst action for closed Riemannian 4-manifolds with orthogonal connections. For connections whose torsion has zero Cartan type component we show that the Holst action can be recovered from the heat asymptotics for the natural Dirac operator acting on left-handed spinor fields.

Observing an action engages the same brain regions as executing an action. Activity in the motor areas of the brain can be measured indirectly using non-invasive techniques, such as single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The current study aimed to investigate the time-course of motor cortex activity during action observation of a simple and complex action. In Experiment 1 single-pulse TMS was used to investigate whether the time-course, and magnitude of change in motor cortex excitability was mediated by complexity of an observed action. Measures of motor cortex excitability acting on two intrinsic hand muscles and two forearm muscles were obtained during observation of a simple and a complex action. Experiment 1 found excitability in an intrinsic hand muscle was greater during observation of a complex action compared to a simple action, at the time-point at which the actions were kinematically different. Paired-pulse TMS can be used to measure excitability of motor cortex inhibitory processes. In Experiment 2, single and paired-pulse TMS was used to determine whether greater excitability during observation of the complex action compared to the simple action was associated with reduced motor cortical inhibition. Experiment 2 showed no significant difference in motor cortical inhibition between the complex and simple action. Findings suggest action complexity modulates changes in motor cortex excitability during action observation.

In two experiments, we examined the behavioural and electro-physiological effects of errors in touch-typing. The effect of errors on skilled actions is an under-studied area in cognitive psychology. The available evidence suggests that errors have different effects on discrete vs. skilled and continuous actions. Our primary aim was to study the behavioural and electro-physiological effects of errors, and explore any interactions between them such as event-related potentials (ERP) and error correction via the backspace. We asked touch-typists to type 100 sentences in the absence of visual feedback. We recorded electro-encephalogram (EEG) as well as typing performance of touch-typists. We analysed the data using independent component analysis (ICA), with an emphasis on the difference between correct and error key-presses as well as corrected and uncorrected error key-presses. We found that the error (corrected and uncorrected) key-presses in typing were slowed, and were followed by slowed key-presses. In the EEG record, we found a considerable increase in the power of theta oscillations (3-8Hz) as well as classic ERP findings (i.e. error related negativity (ERN) and positivity (Pe)). Importantly, these effects were much stronger during corrected errors compared to uncorrected errors. Our results suggest that even in a skilled action which involves more than 7 key-presses every second, it is possible to detect one's errors before the error action is completed, and that error correction can be predicted by the strength of error induced changes in the EEG record.

The aim of this thesis is to better understand the role of the facilitator in action learning groups. In particular, it focuses on groups established within an organisation, in which the facilitator is a member of the organisation. The two central research questions are: (1) How did the facilitator influence problem solving and group interactions, and how did this vary over time and between each group, and (2) How did the facilitator's role in the organisation impact on the action learning groups? The methodology of action research and a number of principles of grounded theory are employed. The investigation was conducted within a large public teaching hospital over a two year period. Four groups volunteered to participate in the project. Two of these groups were already established and two were newly created for the purpose of the research project. The groups came from different departments and members represented a range of professional backgrounds. The size of the groups ranged from 5 to 12 participants. Each group identified a real and significant project to work through using an action learning approach. The researcher negotiated with each group what it wanted from a facilitator role, and then facilitated each meeting. All group meetings and individual interviews were audiotaped and the facilitator kept journal notes after each meeting or interview. Two potential methodological issues arose. The first related to the application of some of the principles of grounded theory to the action research investigation. The second was that the study was conducted in the researcher???s own organisation while the researcher was employed full-time, and this posed particular issues. Literature related to action learning, process consultation and small group facilitation was explored in the literature review. The purpose of this review was to critically evaluate different perspectives and approaches by frequently cited authors in these subjects, and to understand the uses and limitations of existing models. This gave the researcher an understanding of gaps in the literature related to (1) the role of the facilitator of action learning groups, and (2) conducting research in one???s organisation. Data were analysed for each group separately and then compared and contrasted in the final chapter. The objectives of the analysis were to (1) examine how the findings for each individual group address the research questions, (2) explore how the findings in each group change over time, and (2) examine how and why the findings in the groups were similar and different to each other. The findings across each of the groups have similarities and differences. There were seven interventions used by the facilitator that were common across the groups. The interventions changed over the duration of the project. Process skills were required to different degrees and at different times. Nine hypotheses were developed as the theory. Some key findings are as follows. First, it was found that groups that have not had prior experience in action learning do not understand the concept and process of facilitation and are unable to articulate in advance what they want from the facilitator. Second, the role of the facilitator cannot be separated from the skills, values and understandings of the individual facilitator. Third, a major role of the facilitator in this investigation was sharing knowledge of the organisation, the broader health care sector, and general management. In each group the facilitator performed both process and content roles, and a further role that can be called ????????????contextualising???. The findings show there is a distinction between the theoretical role and the role of an individual facilitator in practice. Further research opportunities are identified. These include (1) understanding how participants who have been involved in a facilitated action learning group may be able to apply their experience in a non-facilitated action learning group; (2) comparing the needs and expectations of participants in a facilitated action learning group within an organisation with action learning participants who are not part of an organisation; (3) understanding how facilitation of an action learning group within an organisation may change if the facilitator is in a management role, or in a peer position with participants.

Dual-task studies have shown higher sensitivity for stimuli presented at the targets of upcoming actions. Generally, movement outcome feedback is also obtained at action targets. This thesis examined whether attention is directed to action targets for the purpose of action selection, as previously concluded, or if attention is directed to monitor feedback about movement outcomes as supported by skilled-action research. Across seven experiments, participants executed either a pointing movement (Experiments 1 – 5) or a saccade (Experiments 6 and 7), while simultaneously identifying a discrimination target ('E' or '3') among distractors (2s and 5s). Action targets were generally cued by a central arrow. Discrimination target identification accuracy measured attention allocation. Crucially, movement accuracy feedback was presented at a spatially separate location from the action target. It was found that during the planning of goal-directed actions, attention is allocated to monitor movement outcomes, even if this information is provided at a spatially separate location from the action target. Attending the separate feedback location resulted in slower reaction times and less accurate pointing. Clear and consistent perceptual enhancement was also demonstrated at the action target location, even when no intrinsic or extrinsic feedback about the action could have been gained from attending there. Specific to saccades, it was found that attention is allocated before saccade execution to both the saccade goal and to the predicted future retinal location of feedback information. Lastly, perceptual performance is greater in general when participants perform the dual-task visually open-loop, that is without visual feedback from the moving hand. These results are novel in showing that attention appears to be required for action target selection, independently of the need to monitor expected locations of feedback.

Oulun kaupunki on ylläpitänyt usean vuoden ajan Action-liikuntapalvelua, joka tarjoaa 13–18-vuotiaille nuorille ohjattua, maksutonta ja monipuolista liikuntaa. Actionin vaikutusta oululaisnuorten liikunnallisuuteen ei ole ennen tutkittu, joten aiheen kartoittaminen oli ajankohtaista. Suuri osa suomalaislapsista ja -nuorista liikkuu liian vähän, ja liikunnallisuuden on todettu vähenevän murrosiän aikana. Siksi oli erityisen keskeistä selvittää, voitaisiinko Actionin kaltaisella maksuttomalla ja vapaamuotoisella toiminnalla edesauttaa liikunnan harrastamista läpi nuoruusvuosien ja kannustaa myös lähtökohtaisesti vähän liikkuvia nuoria liikunnan pariin. Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin, miten Action on vaikuttanut sekä nykyisten 13–18-vuotiaiden kävijöiden että entisten kävijöiden liikkumistottumuksiin. Aineistoina hyödynnettiin nykyisten ja entisten kävijöiden kyselylomakevastauksia sekä entisten kävijöiden laatimia kirjoitettuja kertomuksia. Kertomusten tarkastelussa sovellettiin juonianalyysiä sekä holistis-sisällöllistä ja holistis-muodollista lähestymistapaa, jotka kuuluvat narratiivisen tutkimusmetodin piiriin. Tutkimusongelmat olivat seuraavat: 1) Miten Action on vaikuttanut nykyisten kävijöiden fyysiseen aktiivisuuteen? Miten nykyiset kävijät suhtautuvat Actioniin ja miten he ovat hyödyntäneet palvelua? 2) Miten Action on vaikuttanut entisten kävijöiden fyysiseen aktiivisuuteen? Millaisia liikkujia entiset kävijät ovat nykyään ja miten he suhtautuvat Actioniin? 3) Miten entiset Action-kävijät kuvaavat kertomuksissaan liikunnallisuuttaan ja siinä tapahtuneita muutoksia? Millaisia yhtäläisyyksiä ja eroja kertomuksissa esiintyy? Tutkimus osoitti, että nykyiset ja entiset Action-kävijät olivat keskimäärin hieman aktiivisempia liikkujia Actionin aikana kuin ennen Actionia. Lisäksi lähtökohtaisesti vähän liikkuvien lukumäärä väheni Actionin myötä. Actioniin suhtauduttiin enimmäkseen myönteisesti ja toiminnan parhaana puolena pidettiin maksuttomuutta. Kehittämisehdotuksia kohdistettiin eniten lajitarjontaan. Entisten kävijöiden kertomuksista ilmeni, että Action-toiminta on vaikuttanut lievän positiivisesta merkittävän positiivisesti kertojien liikunnallisuuteen. Vaikka kertojat ovat hyödyntäneet Actionia eri tavoin, jokaisella oli yleisesti ottaen myönteisiä kokemuksia toiminnasta ja he puolsivat sen jatkamista. Actionin myönteisistä vaikutuksista liikunnallisuuteen ei voida tehdä yksiselitteisiä johtopäätöksiä tämän tutkimuksen perusteella, sillä tutkittava otos oli melko pieni, eikä tutkimuksessa käytetty verrokkiryhmiä. Tulokset kuitenkin viittaavat siihen, että Action on toiminut mahdollisena kannustimena monen nuoren liikkumiselle ja auttanut vähintään ylläpitämään harrastetun liikunnan määrää. Jotta nämä tulokset vahvistuisivat, jatkotutkimuksissa olisi tärkeää tarkastella laajempia aineistoja. Luotettavuuden kannalta olisi keskeistä kartoittaa myös sellaisten nuorten liikunnallisuuden kehitystä, jotka eivät ole koskaan osallistuneet Actioniin.

Proponents of embodied cognition claim that the meaning of language is not stored amodally but is grounded within modality-specific brain regions. A large body of work supports this view by demonstrating that action language processing elicits motoric activation and behaviourally interacts with action performance. The fMRI and behavioural experiments described in the following chapters aimed to address several gaps in our current understanding of the nature of these language-induced motoric representations. By manipulating particular aspects of action language such as hand use and physical effort, the fMRI data supports the hypothesis that language evokes the activation of very specific and detailed action representations. As the effort information could only be derived from the combination of word meaning across the sentence, it was shown that these effects are not simply driven by single action verbs but by the integration of several activated semantic networks. Furthermore, the regions that were activated by action language are those that are involved in action planning as opposed to action execution, highlighting that these action representations are of a cognitive and abstract nature. Behavioural experiments were conducted to evaluate the functional significance of these embodied motoric activations. Despite observing modality specific representations using fMRI, when action and language shared specific physical effort attributes, behavioural interaction effects were absent, indicating that motoric activity may not necessarily be required for the processing of action language. The role that the motor system plays in the comprehension of action language is unclear from the evidence presented, as methodological issues may have played a part in generating this null result. The conclusions made from this selection of experiments and the implications of this research within the wider literature are further discussed.

La pluralité de victimes est une situation plutôt fréquente. Elle est pourtant souvent ignorée par le droit pénal qui a globalement été construit selon un schéma simple dans lequel la victime est unique. Il en découle que la pluralité de victimes constitue un élément de complexité qui invite à se demander si le droit pénal est suffisamment adapté à cette circonstance ou s’il peut l’être davantage. La question se pose alors essentiellement dans le cas où la pluralité de victimes est causée par un seul fait ce qui conduit à placer l’analyse sous l’égide de la règle ne bis in idem qui comprend deux dimensions distinctes. En droit pénal de fond, la règle exprime ainsi le principe de l’interdiction de punir un même fait plusieurs fois. Il en résulte que la pluralité de victimes est souvent indifférente. Pourtant, il est possible de penser qu’elle accroît parfois la culpabilité de l’individu qui commet une infraction à l’encontre de plusieurs personnes ce qui pourrait justifier de le punir plus sévèrement que s’il avait commis la même infraction contre une seule victime. Le but de la présente thèse est alors de montrer qu’une influence plus grande de la pluralité de victimes semble possible et de proposer un système inspiré de certaines législations pénales étrangères qui pourrait permettre de tenir davantage compte de cette circonstance et d’une façon qui paraît conforme à la règle ne bis in idem. En droit pénal procédural, la pluralité de victimes semble au contraire inviter à des solutions qui iraient au-delà de celles qui découlent actuellement de la règle ne bis in idem. En effet, la pluralité de victimes est notamment susceptible d’augmenter le risque de contradiction des décisions de justice rendues à propos d’un même fait en raison de la multiplicité des actions civiles individuelles possibles. La cohérence des décisions de justice semblerait alors pouvoir être davantage respectée en permettant notamment que les intérêts de la pluralité de victimes puissent être défendus dans le cadre d’une action de groupe pénale
Multiple victims is a rather common situation. However, it is often ignored by criminal law, which has generally been constructed according to a simple scheme in which the victim is unique. As a result, the plurality of victims constitutes an element of complexity that raises the question of whether the criminal law is sufficiently adapted to this circumstance or whether it could be more so. The question then arises essentially in the case where the plurality of victims is caused by a single act, which leads to placing the analysis under the aegis of the ne bis in idem rule, which has two distinct dimensions. In substantive criminal law, the rule thus expresses the principle of the prohibition of punishing the same act more than once. As a result, the plurality of victims is often irrelevant. However, it is possible to think that it sometimes increases the culpability of the individual who commits an offence against several people, which could justify punishing him more severely than if he had committed the same offence against a single victim. The aim of this thesis is therefore to show that a greater influence of the plurality of victims seems possible and to propose a system inspired by certain foreign criminal laws that could allow this circumstance to be more taken into account and in a way that seems to be in conformity with the ne bis in idem rule. In procedural criminal law, the plurality of victims seems, on the contrary, to invite solutions that would go beyond those that currently derive from the ne bis in idem rule. Indeed, the plurality of victims is likely to increase the risk of contradiction between judicial decisions rendered in relation to the same act because of the multiplicity of possible individual actions. The coherence of judicial decisions would then seem to be better respected by allowing the interests of multiple victims to be defended in the context of a criminal class action

Past work on joint action has shown that the performance of joint action improves when individuals within a pair behave using a predictable strategy. The present study sought to examine the effects of manipulating task demands on joint action planning strategies and online control. Participant pairs performed a joint task in which a Passer passed an object to a Receiver, who had to place it in a target area in a pre-determined orientation. Seven experiments varied the demands, constraints, and roles involved in each participants' task. Experiment 1, which served as a control for the following experiments, examined the basic action planning formation amongst two individuals. Experiment 2 and 3 applied an artificial impairment in a predictable and unpredictable manner, respectively, to one of the participants to examine its effect on strategy formation relative to action planning and control. In Experiment 4 the effects of gaze cue was examined, whilst Experiment 5 increased task difficulty through the insertion of an added precision task. Experiment 6 examined the role of imitation and adopting a partner's role during joint cooperation by swapping roles during the object passing task. Experiment 7 increased movement complexity through the application of a cube that could be rotated in 3 dimensions. Overall, it was observed that Passers were inclined to rotate the object prior to handing it to the Receiver, thereby accommodating the latter's affordances. When task demands were varied within a session, Passer's adopted highly consistent strategies across conditions. When roles were reversed halfway through the session, participants generally behaved as their partner had in the first block. Taken in sum, 4 these results suggest that planning a joint action is influenced by a partner's task and the overall action goal, with predictability being an important component of strategy formation.

Theatre directors need to solve numerous problems during the process of production, from their discussion of ideas with designers during pre-production, to their bargaining with producers to achieve a vision that does not exceed the budget. Then during rehearsal, directors may be faced with a cast drawn from different backgrounds of training and with various levels of experience. This thesis poses practical questions for directors: What should they do to make suitable decisions in a complex situation? And can the use of the action research framework help them make the best choice? Action research is an interactive inquiry process that integrates the implementation of a plan by developing an understanding of its effectiveness. As distinct from many forms of conventional academic research (Kemmis and McTaggart 1988, McNiff and Whitehead 2011), those actively employing action research – such as education and nursing professionals - participate in an ongoing testing and monitoring of improvements through its practice. Having acknowledged that they have found it to be a successful tool to assess, change and produce practical knowledge, this investigation seeks to determine if it can also be of benefit to the creative world of the theatre director. This thesis also reviews ethnographic fieldwork technique as a means of augmenting the ‘observation’ stage in the action research framework. Drawing on my (observer-participant) observation of the production Three Brothers, I describe how the directorial process shares some of the features of action research, even though the director is not consciously deploying them. Then, appointed as director of Principle, I am given the opportunity to work as decision-maker at rehearsals which normally take place behind doors closed to the public. This enables me to reveal the many complexities faced by the director. In both cases, they reveal the way directors can benefit from applying action research themselves.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 22, 2007). Directed by Hephzibah Roskelly; submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-177).

The general aim of the thesis was to investigate how and to what extent the characteristics of action organization are reflected in language, and how they influence language processing and understanding. Even though a huge amount of research has been devoted to the study of the motor effects of language, this issue is very debated in literature. Namely, the majority of the studies have focused on low-level motor effects such as effector-relatedness of action, whereas only a few studies have started to systematically investigate how specific aspects of action organization are encoded and reflected in language. After a review of previous studies on the relationship between language comprehension and action (chapter 1) and a critical discussion of some of them (chapter 2), the thesis is composed by three experimental chapters, each devoted to a specific aspect of action organization. Chapter 3 presents a study designed with the aim to disentangle the effective time course of the involvement of the motor system during language processing. Three kinematics experiments were designed in order to determine whether and, at which stage of motor planning and execution effector-related action verbs influence actions executed with either the same or a different effector. Results demonstrate that the goal of an action can be linguistically re-activated, producing a modulation of the motor response. In chapter 4, a second study investigates the interplay between the role of motor perspective (agent) and the organization of action in motor chains. More specifically, this kinematics study aims at deepening how goal can be translated in language, using as stimuli simple sentences composed by a pronoun (I, You, He/She) and a verb. Results showed that the perspective activated by the pronoun You reflects the motor pattern of the “agent” combined with the chain structure of the verb. These data confirm an early involvement of the motor system in language processing, suggesting that it is specifically modulated by the activation of the agent’s perspective. In chapter 5, the issue of perspective is specifically investigated, focusing on its role in language comprehension. In particular, this study aimed at determining how a specific perspective (induced for example by a personal pronoun) modulates motor behaviour during and after language processing. A classical compatibility effect (the Action-sentence compatibility effect) has been used to this aim. In three behavioural experiments the authors investigated how the ACE is modulated by taking first or third person perspective. Results from these experiments showed that the ACE effect occurs only when a first-person perspective is activated by the sentences used as stimuli. Overall, the data from this thesis contributed to disentangle several aspects of how action organization is translated in language, and then reactivated during language processing. This constitutes a new contribution to the field, adding lacking information on how specific aspects such as goal and perspective are linguistically described. In addition, these studies offer a new point of view to understand the functional implications of the involvement of the motor system during language comprehension, specifically from the point of view of our social interactions.

The general aim of the thesis was to investigate how and to what extent the characteristics of action organization are reflected in language, and how they influence language processing and understanding. Even though a huge amount of research has been devoted to the study of the motor effects of language, this issue is very debated in literature. Namely, the majority of the studies have focused on low-level motor effects such as effector-relatedness of action, whereas only a few studies have started to systematically investigate how specific aspects of action organization are encoded and reflected in language. After a review of previous studies on the relationship between language comprehension and action (chapter 1) and a critical discussion of some of them (chapter 2), the thesis is composed by three experimental chapters, each devoted to a specific aspect of action organization. Chapter 3 presents a study designed with the aim to disentangle the effective time course of the involvement of the motor system during language processing. Three kinematics experiments were designed in order to determine whether and, at which stage of motor planning and execution effector-related action verbs influence actions executed with either the same or a different effector. Results demonstrate that the goal of an action can be linguistically re-activated, producing a modulation of the motor response. In chapter 4, a second study investigates the interplay between the role of motor perspective (agent) and the organization of action in motor chains. More specifically, this kinematics study aims at deepening how goal can be translated in language, using as stimuli simple sentences composed by a pronoun (I, You, He/She) and a verb. Results showed that the perspective activated by the pronoun You reflects the motor pattern of the “agent” combined with the chain structure of the verb. These data confirm an early involvement of the motor system in language processing, suggesting that it is specifically modulated by the activation of the agent’s perspective. In chapter 5, the issue of perspective is specifically investigated, focusing on its role in language comprehension. In particular, this study aimed at determining how a specific perspective (induced for example by a personal pronoun) modulates motor behaviour during and after language processing. A classical compatibility effect (the Action-sentence compatibility effect) has been used to this aim. In three behavioural experiments the authors investigated how the ACE is modulated by taking first or third person perspective. Results from these experiments showed that the ACE effect occurs only when a first-person perspective is activated by the sentences used as stimuli. Overall, the data from this thesis contributed to disentangle several aspects of how action organization is translated in language, and then reactivated during language processing. This constitutes a new contribution to the field, adding lacking information on how specific aspects such as goal and perspective are linguistically described. In addition, these studies offer a new point of view to understand the functional implications of the involvement of the motor system during language comprehension, specifically from the point of view of our social interactions.

We discuss a new concept of agent programs that combines logic programming with reasoning about actions. These agent logic programs are characterized by a clear separation between the specification of the agent’s strategic behavior and the underlying theory about the agent’s actions and their effects. This makes it a generic, declarative agent programming language, which can be combined with an action representation formalism of one’s choice. We present a declarative semantics for agent logic programs along with (two versions of) a sound and complete operational semantics, which combines the standard inference mechanisms for (constraint) logic programs with reasoning about actions.

It is widely acknowledged that an agent is doing A intentionally only if she knows she is doing A. It has proved difficult, however, to reconcile two natural thoughts about this knowledge. On the one hand, the agent seems to know what she is doing immediately, simply by doing it. Her knowledge seems to rely upon no evidence, and indeed to rest upon no specifiable epistemic basis at all. On the other hand, the agent can be wrong about what she is doing; she is fallible. The difficulty is to see how an agent can be wrong about her action if her knowledge of it is immediate. My dissertation provides an account of the agent’s knowledge of her own actions that reconciles these natural, but apparently conflicting thoughts. In the face of this difficulty, many philosophers distinguish two objects of knowledge in action: the object of immediate knowledge, which is supposed to be something interior, and what the agent actually does, which is known only mediately. I argue that this two-factor framework is unacceptable, since it cannot account for the insight which motivated the study of intentional action via the agent’s knowledge of these actions: that it is in virtue of this specific way of knowing that the agent is the agent of her intentional actions. Instead, I defend a view on which acting intentionally itself, with no need for further epistemic work, is a way of knowing what actually happens. This account of knowledge in action also allows me to clarify how this knowledge is necessarily related to our capacity for agency. I argue that the rational capacities that are drawn on in figuring out what to do here and now are the very source of both the action’s taking place, and the agent’s knowledge of her actions without evidence. Since the agent’s knowledge is the result of the very same reasoning that brings about the action, it is practical, and the agent’s having it is the mark of her practical rationality at work and her being the knowingly efficacious author of the action.
Philosophy

Reasons for action are considerations in the light of which we act. But just what is it that we attribute to a person when we credit her with a good reason? What sort of entity is on our minds when we deliberate about what we have reason to do? This book examines this question and evaluates a number of approaches to the philosophy of reasons, including normative realism, psychologism and Humeanism. The second half of the book contains the defense of a theory of reasons influenced by the writings of Wilfrid Sellars and Robert Brandom. This theory is further developed in relation to a number of recent topics in action theory, including the Guise of the Good thesis, internalism and the normativity of reasons.

The project examines the relationship between perception and action, and is divided into two parts. The first establishes a detailed philosophical critique of recent sensorimotor or enactive approaches to perception, targeting in particular the work of Alva Noë. In the second part I defend what may be called an 'action-space' account, according to which conscious experience is constituted by an agent's representing his surroundings in such a way as to enable a certain suite of actions. The enactive approach, I argue, misconstrues the relationship between perception and action and fails in its aim to provide an explanation of consciousness. It faces difficulties, too, when it comes to illusion, hallucination and non-visual perception. The action-space model, by contrast, drawing upon work by Andy Clark, Daniel Dennett and Philip Pettit, has the resources to provide a reductive, functionalist account of phenomenal consciousness; an account that locates consciousness where we want it - in the service of fluid world-engagement by embodied, active perceivers. Thus the perception/action interface is taken to be less direct than on the sensorimotor interpretation, but is nonetheless deep and important. The approach I endorse, furthermore, is consistent with and informed by empirical results from the cognitive sciences, including work on embodied, situated cognition and dual-streams analyses of visual processing.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2000.
Also available online at the MIT Theses Online homepage
Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-120).
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
We strain our eyes, cramp our necks, and destroy our hands trying to interact with computer on their terms. At the extreme, we strap on devices and weigh ourselves down with cables trying to re-create a sense of place inside the machine, while cutting ourselves off from the world and people around us. The alternative is to make the real environment responsive to our actions. It is not enough for environments to respond simply to the presence of people or objects: they must also be aware of the subtleties of changing situations. If all the spaces we inhabit are to be responsive, they must not require encumbering devices to be worn and they must be adaptive to changes in the environment and changes of context. This dissertation examines a body of sophisticated perceptual mechanisms developed in response to these needs as well as a selection of human-computer interface sketches designed to push the technology forward and explore the possibilities of this novel interface idiom. Specifically, the formulation of a fully recursive framework for computer vision called DYNA that improves performance of human motion tracking will be examined in depth. The improvement in tracking performance is accomplished with the combination of a three-dimensional, physics-based model of the human body with modifications to the pixel classification algorithms that enable them to take advantage of this high-level knowledge. The result is a novel vision framework that has no completely bottom-up processes, and is therefore significantly faster and more stable than other approaches.
by Christopher R. Wren.
Ph.D.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2016.
Page 166 blank. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-165).
In this thesis, I present an action-first theory of knowledge and belief. We have a mutual interest in the successful action of our peers, and the significance of belief and knowledge stems from their role in promoting this success. Knowledge states tend to guide successful action, in an appropriately systematic manner. Belief states systematically guide our attempts to achieve our goals, and would lead to success if all went well. In defending the action-first account, I draw on a kind of pragmatism: we should look to the practical role of belief and knowledge attribution, in a social setting, to determine the nature of belief and knowledge themselves. The action-account states that the role of knowledge attribution is to identify and promote successful agents. This implies that knowledge itself is a state that tends to guide successful action. Similarly, the role of belief attribution is to help us predict how people will attempt to achieve their goals, and correct them to avoid failure where necessary. This implies that beliefs are action-guiding states that may not be success conducive - these are states that are apt to become knowledge given the appropriate evidence or argument. A final point is that the role of our ascriptions of rationality (and irrationality) is to promote practices that tend to lead to knowledge. This gives us a unified account of our concepts of knowledge, belief and rationality, founded in a cooperative society's interest in mutual success. Granting the action-account leads to significant consequences in epistemology and philosophy of mind. It gives us reason to reject various accessibility principles, and accept intellectualism with regard to know-how. All states that lead to successful action in a systematic manner, even if we do not consciously endorse their content, fit with the rationale of the action-account. Further, the account suggests a new way to model conflicted mental states, and suggests rethinking the role of the Bayesian ideal in our conception of rationality. These consequences, in turn, provide motivation for the action-account itself on pragmatic grounds: it opens up promising new lines of inquiry in philosophy.
by Jack Marley-Payne.
Ph. D.

Music Composition
Ph.D.;
Contemporary classical concert music could be part of the solution to build a just and sustainable future. My research demonstrates that such music, despite its niche, elitist positioning in contemporary American society, can contribute to social movements and change the world in meaningful, tangible ways when attention is paid to social movement strategy and structures of power. To reconsider the potential power of this music, I apply a range of methodologies from ethnography to hermeneutic analysis to nonviolent direct action strategy, drawing on the work of musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and social movement theorists. Given the elitism of the classical concert hall, it is a non-obvious genre in which to convey a social justice or leftist political theme, yet many composers try to do so. I examine five of these composers in depth: Laura Kaminsky, David Lang, Curt Cacioppo, Ludovico Einaudi, and Hannibal (who goes by other names but used the mononym Hannibal in the concert which
Temple University--Theses

Music Composition
Ph.D.;
Contemporary classical concert music could be part of the solution to build a just and sustainable future. My research demonstrates that such music, despite its niche, elitist positioning in contemporary American society, can contribute to social movements and change the world in meaningful, tangible ways when attention is paid to social movement strategy and structures of power. To reconsider the potential power of this music, I apply a range of methodologies from ethnography to hermeneutic analysis to nonviolent direct action strategy, drawing on the work of musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and social movement theorists. Given the elitism of the classical concert hall, it is a non-obvious genre in which to convey a social justice or leftist political theme, yet many composers try to do so. I examine five of these composers in depth: Laura Kaminsky, David Lang, Curt Cacioppo, Ludovico Einaudi, and Hannibal (who goes by other names but used the mononym Hannibal in the concert which
Temple University--Theses

Il mio elaborato affronta il tema della class action, introdotta per la prima volta in Italia nel 2010, dopo molti rinvii. Paragonando la disciplina italiana con quella statunitense, ne chiarisce le occasioni di opportuno utilizzo e le potenzialità di questo strumento in entrambi gli ordinamenti. Successivamente vengono passati in rassegna e confrontati alcuni dei più importanti casi di azione di classe nazionali e internazionali – alcuni dei quali ancora in corso (es. caso Volkswagen) - osservando come con tale “riunione delle loro forze” i consumatori assumano un peso processuale che individualmente non potrebbero mai avere. Infine si esplorano le novità del 2013, tra cui una proposta di legge giunta alla Camera che prospetta il cambiamento della procedura della class action, trasferendone la disciplina dal codice del consumo a quello di procedura civile e si sottolineano le prospettive di evoluzione futura.

Recent evidence has contributed to change the view according to which action representation chiefly depends on visual information. In particular, research on hand grasping actions has emphasized that a multimodal interplay across vision, audition, the sense of touch, and proprioception occurs when performing and understanding an action (e.g., Castiello, 1996; Patchay, Castiello, & Haggard, 2003; Gazzola, Aziz-Zadeh, & Keysers, 2006; Zahariev & MacKenzie, 2007). The experimental work included in the present thesis aimed at extending the multisensory aspects of action representation to the olfactory domain. I first addressed this issue from the perspective of action execution by asking participants to reach and grasp a target-object under different circumstances of visual and olfactory stimulation. The angular excursion at the level of individual digits, digits’ angular distance, and arm movement duration were recorded. Next, I focused on action understanding by asking participants to observe others’ grasping actions under different visual and olfactory conditions. Here, cerebral activity of the neural system responsible for action understanding, i.e., the Action Observation System (AOS) was recorded. An overview of this experimentation is outlined in the following section. OVERVIEW OF THE PRESENT RESEARCH In the first two experiments (Thesis Chapters 3 and 4) participants were requested to reach towards and grasp either a small or a large visual target calling for different types of grasp, precision grip (PG) and whole hand grasp (WHG), respectively. This task was performed in the absence or in the presence of an odour associated with objects that, if grasped, would require a PG or a WHG. The aim of these experiments was twofold. First, to understand whether the central nervous system (CNS) can use olfactory information to select and execute a ‘grasp’ motor plan. Second, to shed light on how detailed the motor commands embedded within the ‘grasp’ plans elicited by an object’s olfactory representation are. The results showed that merely smelling the odour associated with a small and a large object activates the kinematic parameterization of the action appropriate for grasp that object, i.e., PG and WHG, respectively. Therefore, the CNS is able to convert the geometric features of an olfactory-encoded object (e.g., size) into the motor prototype for interacting with that object. In other words, the visuomotor mechanism underlying the control of action (e.g., Castiello, 1996) appears to be sensitive to olfactory information. From a perceptual perspective, the representation evoked by the odour seems to contain highly detailed information regarding the object (i.e., volumetric features). This is because the effect of odour ‘size’ was played out on the hand posture at the level of individual digits’ motion. If olfaction had provided a blurred and holistic object’s representation (i.e., a low spatial-resolution of the object’s image), then the odour would have not affected would have not affected the hand in its entirety. From a motor perspective, the olfactory representation seems to be mapped into the action vocabulary with a certain degree of reliability. The elicited motor plan is not an incomplete primal sketch which only provides a preliminary descriptive in the terms of motor execution but it embodies specific and selective commands for handling the ‘smelled’ object. In the experiments described above the odour associated with the object was always delivered before movement initiation and before the target became visually available. For the motor control system this entailed to prioritize the ‘olfactory’ non-target object with respect to the visual target. Specifically, planning and execution of action was first based on the sense of smell. In this respect, previous research on grasping actions revealed that visual nontarget-objects do not activate the corresponding ‘grasp’ plans when prior knowledge regarding the visual target is given to participants (e.g., Castiello, 1996). In order to investigate whether this caveat also applies for nontarget-objects signalled via olfaction, I performed an experiment (Thesis Chapters 5) similar to those reported above, but participants were given sufficient time to code for the visual target before movement initiation. The results showed that in such circumstances the odour ‘size’ did modulate the temporal organization of the arm movement. Therefore, even when olfactory information plays a secondary role with respect to visual information for action guidance, the olfactory-encoded object is represented within the motor system. And, traces of the ‘grasp’ motor plan associated with the olfactory object remain evident at the level of the arm movement. Having demonstrated the influence that olfactory stimuli might have for the control of action I reasoned that such phenomenon might be relevant for investigating possible gender differences in the use of olfactory information within the action domain (e.g., Ecuyer-Dab & Robert, 2004). Therefore by using an experimental paradigm similar to that reported in Thesis Chapter 4, I investigated whether gender differences were evident when odours of objects had to be mapped into the corresponding ‘grasp’ motor plans (Thesis Chapter 6). The results showed that for men arm-movement duration increased when the ‘size’ of the odour did not match the size of the visual target. Whereas, for women such effect was not revealed. Remember that a lengthening in movement duration was taken as evidence for an odour-induced activation of the ‘grasp’ motor plans associated with the ‘smelled-objects’ (Thesis Chapter 4). Therefore, it appears that male sense of smell is action-oriented, i.e., tailored to elicit specific and selective motor commands for act upon olfactory-encoded objects. Whereas, in line with previous evidences stemming from research on human olfaction, the female sense of smell would be perception-oriented, i.e., optimised to detect, discriminate, identify, recognise, and categorise odours (e.g., Brand & Millot, 2001). Once documented that the sense of smell provides useful information for planning and execute an action I investigated whether olfactory cues may also contribute to the understanding of others’ actions. The fMRI experiment reported in Thesis Chapter 7 was conceived to specifically address this issue. The results showed that the neural system devoted to action understanding (i.e., the ASO) represented both a hand grasping an ‘olfactory’ object and a mimed hand grasp. Importantly, evidence that the AOS was also able to differentiate between these two type of actions was also found. The discrimination process might solely be ascribed to the olfactory information which signalled the target-object. Therefore, the role played by olfactory information in action understanding was demonstrated. With this in mind the central advance of the present work is twofold. First, I demonstrated that processes of selection for the control of actions may be based on olfactory information. This was done by linking current advances in the methodology for recording hand kinematics and paradigms considering the presence of nontarget-object. Second, I provided evidence for the contribution of olfactory information to the understanding of other’s actions. This was achieved by combining the fMRI technique with an action observation paradigm. REFERENCES Brand, G., & Millot, J. L. (2001). Sex differences in human olfaction: between evidence and enigma. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 259-270. Castiello, U. (1996). Grasping a fruit: selection for action. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22, 582-603. Ecuyer-Dab, I., & Robert, M. (2004). Have sex differences in spatial ability evolved from male competition for mating and female concern for survival? Cognition, 91, 221-257. Gazzola, V., Aziz-Zadeh, L., & Keysers, C. (2006). Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans. Current Biology, 16, 1824-1829. Patchay, S., Castiello, U., & Haggard, P. (2003). A crossmodal interference effect in grasping objects. Psychological Bulletin Reviews, 10, 924-931. Zahariev M. A., & MacKenzie, C. L. (2007) Grasping at thin air: multimodal contact cues for reaching and grasping. Experimental Brain Research, 180, 69-84.
Evidenze ottenute da studi recenti hanno cambiato la concezione secondo cui la rappresentazione dell’azione si basa principalmente sulle informazioni di natura visiva. In particolare, la ricerca sulle azioni di prensione ha dimostrato che si verifica un’interazione tra la visione, l’udito, il tatto e la propriocezione sia quando una persona esegue un’azione sia quando cerca di capire l’azione di un altro individuo (Castiello, 1996; Patchay, Castiello, & Haggard, 2003; Gazzola, Aziz-Zadeh, & Keysers, 2006; Zahariev & MacKenzie, 2007). Il lavoro sperimentale riportato nella presente tesi ha lo scopo di estendere gli aspetti multisensoriali della rappresentazione dell’azione al dominio olfattivo. Per prima cosa ho trattato questa questione dalla prospettiva dell’esecuzione dell’azione chiedendo ai partecipanti di raggiungere ed afferrare un oggetto target in diverse condizioni di stimolazione visiva ed olfattiva. Ho registrato l’escursione angolare a livello delle singole giunture delle dita della mano e delle distanze tra le dita. Inoltre ho misurato la durata del movimento del braccio. Poi mi sono concentrato sulla comprensione dell’azione chiedendo ai partecipanti di osservare le azioni di prensione compiute da altri individui in diverse condizioni di stimolazione visiva ed olfattiva. Qui, usando la risonanza magnetica funzionale (fMRI), ho registrato l’attività cerebrale dell’Action Observation System (AOS), la rete di aree responsabile della comprensione dell’azione. Nella seguente sezione fornisco un riassunto di questa sperimentazione. RIASSUNTO DELLA RICERCA Nei primi due esperimenti (Capitoli 3 e 4 della Tesi) i partecipanti raggiungevano ed afferravano degli oggetti target grandi oppure piccoli che richiedevano rispettivamente un precision grip (PG) e un whole hand grasp (WHG). Questo compito era svolto in assenza o in presenza di un odore associato con un oggetto che, se afferrato, avrebbe richiesto un PG o un WHG. L’obiettivo di questi esperimenti era duplice. Innanzitutto volevo capire se il sistema nervoso centrale (SNC) può usare l’informazione olfattiva per selezionare ed eseguire un piano motorio di prensione. Poi volevo valutare quanto sono dettagliati i comandi motori inclusi nel piano di prensione eventualmente attivato dall’odore. I risultati mostrano che semplicemente annusare l’odore associato con un oggetto grande oppure piccolo attiva la parametrizzazione cinematica dell’azione di prensione appropriata per agire su quell’oggetto, i.e., rispettivamente un PG e un WHG. Quindi, il SNC è in grado di convertire le caratteristiche geometriche di un oggetto codificato attraverso l’olfatto nel piano motorio per interagire con quell’oggetto. In altre parole il meccanismo visuomotorio sottostante il controllo dell’azione (Castiello, 1996) è sensibile all’informazione olfattiva. Da una prospettiva percettiva, la rappresentazione evocata dall’odore contiene informazioni altamente dettagliate circa l’oggetto (i.e., caratteristiche volumetriche). Questo perché l’effetto di ‘dimensione’ dell’odore è evidente a livello del movimento delle singole giunture delle singole dita della mano. Se l’olfatto avesse fornito una rappresentazione olistica e non dettagliata dell’oggetto (i.e., un’immagine dell’oggetto a bassa risoluzione spaziale), l’odore non avrebbe modulato la mano nella sua interezza. Da una prospettiva motoria, la rappresentazione olfattiva è mappata nel vocabolario delle azioni con un buon grado di affidabilità. Il piano motorio attivato dall’odore non è una bozza incompleta e primitiva che fornisce solo una descrizione preliminare in termini di esecuzione motoria ma incorpora comandi specifici e selettivi per manipolare l’oggetto ‘annusato’. Negli esperimenti appena descritti l’odore associato con l’oggetto era sempre somministrato prima dell’inizio del movimento e prima che l’oggetto target diventasse visibile. Per il sistema di controllo motorio questo implica una priorità dell’oggetto ‘olfattivo’ nontareget rispetto al target visivo. Nello specifico, la pianificazione e l’esecuzione dell’azione è basata sull’informazione olfattiva. A tal proposito, la ricerca sulle azioni di prensione ha mostrato che gli oggetti visivi nontarget non attivano i corrispondenti piani motori di prensione quando i partecipanti conoscono in anticipo il target (Castiello, 1996). Al fine di investigare se ciò vale anche per gli oggetti ‘olfattivi’ nontarget, ho condotto un esperimento simile a quelli riportati sopra, tuttavia, qui i partecipanti avevano tempo di codificare il target visivo prima dell’inizio del movimento (Capitolo 5 della Tesi). I risultati mostrano che la ‘dimensione’ dell’odore modula l’organizzazione temporale del movimento del braccio. Quindi, anche quando l’informazione olfattiva gioca un ruolo secondario rispetto all’informazione visiva per la guida dell’azione, l’oggetto ‘olfattivo’ è rappresentato nel sistema motorio. Dopo aver dimostrato l’influenza degli stimoli olfattivi sul controllo dell’azione, ho pensato che tale fenomeno poteva essere rilevante per investigare possibili differenze di genere nell’uso dell’informazione olfattiva entro il dominio dell’azione (Ecuyer-Dab & Robert, 2004). Quindi, usando un paradigma sperimentale simile a quello riportato nel Capitolo 4 della Tesi, ho valutato se la capacità di trasformare gli odori degli oggetti nei corrispondenti piani motori varia a seconda del genere (Capitolo 6 della Tesi). I risultati mostrano che per i maschi la durata del movimento del braccio aumenta quando la ‘dimensione’ dell’odore non corrisponde alla dimensione del target visivo. D’altra parte, per le femmine questo effetto non è evidente. Si ricordi che l’aumento della durata del movimento del braccio indica l’attivazione del piano motorio di prensione associato con l’oggetto ‘annusato’ (Capitolo 4 della Tesi). Quindi, sembra che l’olfatto dei maschi sia orientato all’azione, i.e., predisposto ad innescare comandi motori specifici e selettivi per agire sugli oggetti codificati a livello olfattivo. Invece, in linea con precedenti evidenze (Brand & Millot, 2001), l’olfatto femminile sarebbe orientato alla percezione, i.e., ottimizzato per rilevare, discriminare, identificare, riconoscere e categorizzare odori. Una volta dimostrato che l’olfatto fornisce informazioni utili per la pianificazione e l’esecuzione dell’azione, ho indagato se gli indizi olfattivi possono contribuire anche alla comprensione dell’azione altrui. L’esperimento fMRI riportato nel Capitolo 7 della Tesi è stato disegnato per trattare questa questione. I risultati mostrano che l’AOS rappresenta sia una mano che afferra un oggetto di cui si sente l’odore che una prensione mimata. Inoltre l’AOS è in grado di differenziare tra questi due tipi di azione. Questo processo di discriminazione è imputabile solamente all’informazione olfattiva che segnala l’oggetto afferrato da un altro individuo. Quindi il ruolo giocato dall’informazione olfattiva nella comprensione dell’azione risulta dimostrato. In conclusione le evidenze riportate nella mia tesi forniscono due contributi fondamentali all’idea di rappresentazione dell’azione multimodale. Primo, il processo di selezione dei piani motori per il controllo delle azioni può basarsi sull’informazione olfattiva. Questa nozione poggia sui dati ottenuti combinando le recenti tecniche di registrazione delle cinematiche della mano con i paradigmi che considerano la presenza di oggetti nontarget. Secondo, l’olfatto contribuisce alla comprensione dell’azione degli altri. Ciò è stato dimostrato usando il paradigma di osservazione dell’azione e l’fMRI. RIFERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI Brand, G., & Millot, J. L. (2001). Sex differences in human olfaction: between evidence and enigma. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 259-270. Castiello, U. (1996). Grasping a fruit: selection for action. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22, 582-603. Ecuyer-Dab, I., & Robert, M. (2004). Have sex differences in spatial ability evolved from male competition for mating and female concern for survival? Cognition, 91, 221-257. Gazzola, V., Aziz-Zadeh, L., & Keysers, C. (2006). Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans. Current Biology, 16, 1824-1829. Patchay, S., Castiello, U., & Haggard, P. (2003). A crossmodal interference effect in grasping objects. Psychological Bulletin Reviews, 10, 924-931. Zahariev M. A., & MacKenzie, C. L. (2007) Grasping at thin air: multimodal contact cues for reaching and grasping. Experimental Brain Research, 180, 69-84.