Motor Simulation Underpins Temporal Coordination in Joint Action.
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1
Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany
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2
Marcs Institute - University of Western Sydney, Australia
The interpersonal coordination of movements in everyday life relies on one’s ability to represent and integrate simultaneous self- and other-related behaviour. The present study combined on-line brain stimulation methods with a music performance task in order to investigate whether this function is underpinned by motor simulation, i.e. the brain’s capacity to represent a perceived action in terms of the neural resources required to execute it. Ten pianists performed the right-hand part of a piano piece in synchrony with a recording of the left-hand part, which had (Trained) or had not (Untrained) been practiced beforehand. This manipulation was intended to call upon specific motor simulation processes associated with the perception of actions that, through training, exist in an individual’s motor repertoire. Pianists were required to adapt their performance to occasional tempo changes in the left-hand part. In critical conditions, tempo changes were preceded by double-pulse Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (dTMS) delivered over the right primary motor cortex. Accuracy of tempo adaptation following dTMS or control TMS (sham stimulation) was compared in the Trained and Untrained conditions. Results showed that dTMS impaired tempo adaptation accuracy only when the left-hand part had been trained, suggesting that motor simulation processes mediated temporal coordination. The magnitude of this interference-effect was stronger in participants who had relatively high ‘perspective-taking’ scores on a questionnaire assessing empathy. Motor simulation therefore provides a functional resource for the temporal coordination of one’s own (goal-directed) behaviour with others, thus serving as a fundamental component of successful joint action.
Keywords:
Motor Simulation,
temporal adaptation,
TMS,
Music,
Joint Action,
Empathy
Conference:
ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 29 Nov - 2 Dec, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Motor
Citation:
Novembre
G,
Ticini
LF,
Schütz-Bosbach
S and
Keller
P
(2012). Motor Simulation Underpins Temporal Coordination in Joint Action..
Conference Abstract:
ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.208.00073
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Received:
25 Oct 2012;
Published Online:
07 Nov 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Mr. Giacomo Novembre, Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany, giacomo.novembre@iit.it