Representing Others' Actions: The Role of Expertise in the Aging Mind (original) (raw)

Mentally represented motor actions in normal agingI. Age effects on the temporal features of overt and covert execution of actions

Behavioural Brain Research, 2005

The present study examines the temporal features of overt and covert actions as a function of normal aging. In the first experiment, we tested three motor tasks (walking, sit-stand-sit, arm pointing) that did not imply any particular spatiotemporal constraints, and we compared the duration of their overt and covert execution in three different groups of age (mean ages: 22.5, 66.2 and 73.4 years). We found that the ability of generating motor images did not differentiate elderly subjects from young subjects. Precisely, regarding overt and covert durations, subjects presented similarities for the walking and pointing tasks and dissimilarities for the stand-sit-stand task. Furthermore, the timing variability of imagined movements was always greater compared to actual movements and was of the same amount in the three groups of age. In the second experiment, we investigated the effect of age (three groups with mean ages: 22, 64.8 and 73.2 years) upon temporal characteristics of covert and overt movements involving strong spatiotemporal constraints (speed/accuracy trade-off paradigm). During overt execution young and elderly subjects respected Fitts's law despite the fact that movement speed progressively decreased with age. Thus, while execution is deteriorated, the motor preparation process is still intact in old age, and follows well-known laws of biological motions. For covert execution, movement speed progressively decreased with age but elderly subjects did not respect Fitts's law. This suggests that the generation and control of motor intentions that consciously do not come to execution, particularly those concerning complex motor actions are progressively perturbed in the aging brain.

The Timing and Precision of Action Prediction in the Aging Brain

Successful social interactions depend on the ability to anticipate other people's actions. Current conceptualizations of brain function propose that causes of sensory input are inferred through their integration with internal predictions generated in the observer's motor system during action observation. Less is known concerning how action prediction changes with age. Previously we showed that internal action representations are less specific in older compared with younger adults at behavioral and neural levels. Here, we characterize how neural activity varies while healthy older adults aged 56–71 years predict the time-course of an unfolding action as well as the relation to task performance. By using fMRI, brain activity was measured while participants observed partly occluded actions and judged the temporal coherence of the action continuation that was manipulated. We found that neural activity in frontoparietal and occipitotemporal regions increased the more an action continuation was shifted backwards in time. Action continuations that were shifted towards the future preferentially engaged early visual cortices. Increasing age was associated with neural activity that extended from posterior to anterior regions in frontal and superior temporal cortices. Lower sensitivity in action prediction resulted in activity increases in the caudate. These results imply that the neural implementation of predicting actions undergoes similar changes as the neural process of executing actions in older adults. The comparison between internal predictions and sensory input seems to become less precise with age leading to difficulties in anticipating observed actions accurately, possibly due to less specific internal action models. Hum Brain Mapp 00:000–000, 2015. V C 2015 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Mentally represented motor actions in normal aging

Behav Brain Res, 2005

Mental Representation for Action in the Elderly

Journal of Applied Gerontology, 2013

Recent research findings indicate that with older adulthood, there are functional decrements in spatial cognition and more specially, in the ability to mentally represent and effectively plan motor actions. A typical finding is a significant over-or underestimation of one's actual physical abilities with movement planning-planning that has implications for movement efficiency and physical safety. A practical, daily life example is estimation of reachability-a situation that for the elderly may be linked with fall incidence. A strategy used to mentally represent action is the use of motor imageryan ability that also declines with advancing older age. This brief review highlights research findings on mental representation and motor imagery in the elderly and addresses the implications for improving movement efficiency and lowering the risk of movement-related injury.

Interference of action perception on action production increases across the adult life span

Experimental brain research, 2018

Action perception and action production are assumed to be based on an internal simulation process that involves the sensorimotor system. This system undergoes changes across the life span and is assumed to become less precise with age. In the current study, we investigated how increasing age affects the magnitude of interference in action production during simultaneous action perception. In a task adapted from Brass et al. (Brain Cogn 44(2):124-143, 2000), we asked participants (aged 20-80 years) to respond to a visually presented finger movement and/or symbolic cue by executing a previously defined finger movement. Action production was assessed via participants' reaction times. Results show that participants were slower in trials in which they were asked to ignore an incongruent finger movement compared to trials in which they had to ignore an incongruent symbolic cue. Moreover, advancing age was shown to accentuate this effect. We suggest that the internal simulation of the a...

Psychology and Aging, 2008

We describe three theoretical accounts of age-related increases in falsely remembering that imagined actions were performed . To investigate these accounts and further explore age-related changes in reality monitoring of action memories, we used a new paradigm in which actions were (a) imagined-only (b) actually performed, or (c) both imagined and performed. Older adults were more likely than younger adults to misremember the source of imagined-only actions, with older adults' more often specifying that the action was imagined and also that it was performed. For both age groups, as repetitions of the imagined-only events increased, illusions that the actions were only performed decreased. These patterns suggest that both older and younger adults utilize qualitative characteristics when making reality-monitoring judgments and that repeated imagination produces richer records of both sensory details and cognitive operations. However, sensory information derived from imagination appears to be more similar to that derived from performance for older than younger adults.

The interrelations of action perception and action production across the life span

2018

Social interaction requires the anticipation of our interlocutors' behaviour. Through this anticipation we are able to adjust our actions to our counterparts' intentions and implicit goals. The ability to anticipate others' action goals is based on a tight coupling between our perception of actions and our action production ability. However, action perception and production undergo lifelong developmental change and so might their coupling. Therefore, this thesis aims at describing the life span trajectory of the interrelations of action perception and production. Using eye-tracking technology and behavioural measures, action perception and production of participants between 3 and 80 years were assessed within three consecutive cross-sectional studies. Results indicate a relatively stable deferred influence of perception on production across the life span. In contrast, the immediate influences within the coupling were accentuated towards late adulthood. Furthermore, these age-related differences were influenced by the participants' accumulated action experience across the life span and their motor competence. Taken together, the findings of this thesis show stability and variability in the action perception-production coupling across the life span in relation to (age-dependent) individual characteristics.

Adult Age Differences in Learning on a Sequentially Cued Prediction Task

(2013). Adult age differences in learning on a sequentially cued prediction task. Objectives. Much of adaptive behavior relies on the ability to learn and generate predictions about relationships in the environment. Research on aging suggests both that there is an age deficit in the ability to learn sequential relationships and that this deficit in learning could underlie age differences reported in many decision-making tasks. This article introduces the Triplets Prediction Task (TPT) to investigate the learning of sequential relationships that underlies adaptive behavior. Method. In the TPT, participants see 2 successive visual cues and then predict which target will follow. Unknown to participants, there is a predictive relationship between the first cue and the target such that each of 4 cues predicts 1 of 4 targets 85% of the time. Results. Although both age groups demonstrated learning on this task, an age deficit in learning appeared early and performance differences persisted throughout training. There was also evidence of age differences in the learning systems engaged during the task. Discussion. These results are consistent with previous studies of learning and prediction, and they support the growing literature showing adult age differences in decision making from experience.

Representing Others' Actions: The Role of Expertise in the Aging Mind (original) (raw)

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