Effects of brief imitative experience on EEG desynchronization during action observation
Section snippets
Methods
Twenty undergraduates (8 male and 12 female) at a large urban university in the Northeast United States participated in the study. All participants were right-handed and had given their informed consent to participate in the study. The study protocol had been approved by the Institutional Review Board at the principal investigator's university.
The novel action stimuli used in the imitation task were video sequences of a model's lower arm and hand moving a stylus on an LCD graphics tablet.
Effect of imitation on subsequent EEG desynchronization
For analysis, mean ERD scores were computed for 1-s epochs from 0 to 4 s after the onset of the model's arm movement in the first observation epoch. Repeated-measures ANOVAs were computed for each frequency band separately using the following within-subject factors: CONDITION (action imitation vs. other motor experience), TIME (0–1, 1–2, 2–3, and 3–4 s after stimulus onset), HEMISPHERE (left, right), and REGION (eight scalp regions). The regions analyzed were as follows: Frontal pole (Fp1/Fp2),
Discussion
We expected EEG desynchronization at frontal and central sites during observation of novel actions to be greater after having attempted to imitate those actions, compared with a condition in which participants had carried out a different motor action. The most salient finding in support of this hypothesis was a desynchronization at mid-frontal sites in the 11–13 Hz band during action observation following imitation, relative to action observation following execution of an unrelated motor action.
Conclusions
In summary, we assessed the effect of short-term experience with imitating novel hand movements on the desynchronization of alpha-range EEG rhythms during subsequent re-observation of the target actions. We found evidence for the involvement of fronto-central EEG rhythms in imitation, with desynchronization of alpha-range rhythms at frontal and central sites being associated with different aspects of imitative experience. Compared with carrying out an unrelated action, prior imitation of the
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Ben Schimeneck, Jeremy Fesi, Kat Ruopp, and Inara O’Gorman for their assistance with data collection. This research was supported by grant BCS-0642404 from the National Science Foundation to PJM and TFS.
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2020, Developmental Cognitive NeuroscienceCitation Excerpt :Although beyond the scope of the current study, one might expect amplified neural motor activity to predict better imitation performance given prior work linking attentional effects reflected in alpha and beta oscillations and overt performance in adults (Haegens et al., 2011; van Ede et al., 2012) and recent infant EEG work (Filippi et al., 2016). Relatedly, in adults more precise imitation performance is related to alpha power suppression when later observing the previously imitated action again, further supporting a tight link between neural motor activity during action observation and imitation performance (Marshall et al., 2009). Together this might imply that instruction prior to demonstrating an action could not only enhance children’s neural response during action perception but also has the potential to affect children’s action learning.
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2017, Progress in Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :Cross-sectional comparisons of amateur, intermediate, and more elite groups alert to the sensitivity of these neural markers or probes to characterize motor experience (e.g., Babiloni et al., 2010), in addition to the somewhat more common comparisons between strictly novice and expert groups (e.g., Kim et al., 2011; Orgs et al., 2008). However, the question remains as to how sensitive the MNS or AON is to the amount of physical training (e.g., Marshall et al., 2009). Among an fMRI study of skilled basketball players, there were no behavioral (anticipation accuracy) differences as a function of visual-motor experience (and presumably no experience-based scaling of cortical activations) despite experience ranging from 468 to 6552 h of practice (Abreu et al., 2012).
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2015, Behavioural Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :In this respect, there is a widely accepted notion that EEG desynchronization serves as an indicator of cortical activity or arousal, whereas EEG synchronization reflects a state of decreased neural excitability or inhibited thalamo-cortical circuitry [20,21]. Thus, EEG studies about AO have showed alpha band desynchronization (i.e. cortical activation) over the scalp, with the most “reactive” area located under central electrodes sites (C3 and C4) [22–24], although frontal [25] and parietal [26] foci have also been described. Cochin et al. [27] have found stronger alpha band desynchronization in the left hemisphere, mainly over central electrodes and alpha band desynchronization has also been reported to be stronger during the observation of transitive movements [28,29], and it seems to show gender differences too [30].