Action Outcomes Are Represented in Human Inferior Frontoparietal Cortex

The simple action of pressing a switch has many possible interpretations—the actor could be turning on a light, deleting critical files from a computer, or even turning off a life-support system. In each of these cases, the motor parameters of the action are the same but the physical outcome differs...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2008-05, Vol.18 (5), p.1160-1168
Main Authors: de C. Hamilton, Antonia F., Grafton, Scott T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action understanding
Adult
Cognition - physiology
Female
Frontal Lobe - cytology
Frontal Lobe - physiology
Goals
Humans
Intention
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Mirror neuron
Motor Activity - physiology
Neural Pathways
Outcome
Parietal
Parietal Lobe - cytology
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Photic Stimulation
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
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Summary:The simple action of pressing a switch has many possible interpretations—the actor could be turning on a light, deleting critical files from a computer, or even turning off a life-support system. In each of these cases, the motor parameters of the action are the same but the physical outcome differs. We report evidence of suppressed responses in right inferior parietal and right inferior frontal cortex when participants saw repeated movies showing the same action outcome, but these regions did not distinguish the kinematic parameters by which the action was accomplished. Thus, these brain areas encode the physical outcomes of human actions in the world. These results are compatible with a hierarchical model of human action understanding in which a cascade of specialized processes from occipital to parietal and frontal regions allow humans to understand the physical consequences of actions in the world and the intentions underlying those actions.
ISSN:1047-3211
1460-2199
DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhm150