Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

A category of stimuli of great importance for primates, humans in particular, is that formed by actions done by other individuals. If we want to survive, we must understand the actions of others. Furthermore, without action understanding, social organization is impossible. In the case of humans, there is another faculty that depends on the observation of others' actions: imitation learning. Unlike most species, we are able to learn by imitation, and this faculty is at the basis of human culture. In this review we present data on a neurophysiological mechanism--the mirror-neuron mechanism--that appears to play a fundamental role in both action understanding and imitation. We describe first the functional properties of mirror neurons in monkeys. We review next the characteristics of the mirror-neuron system in humans. We stress, in particular, those properties specific to the human mirror-neuron system that might explain the human capacity to learn by imitation. We conclude by discussing the relationship between the mirror-neuron system and language.

The mirror-neuron system.

Recent studies of eye movements in reading and other information processing tasks, such as music reading, typing, visual search, and scene perception, are reviewed. The major emphasis of the review is on reading as a specific example of cognitive processing. Basic topics discussed with respect to reading are (a) the characteristics of eye movements, (b) the perceptual span, (c) integration of information across saccades, (d) eye movement control, and (e) individual differences (including dyslexia). Similar topics are discussed with respect to the other tasks examined. The basic theme of the review is that eye movement data reflect moment-to-moment cognitive processes in the various tasks examined. Theoretical and practical considerations concerning the use of eye movement data are also discussed.

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Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research.

The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction partners, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment. The authors suggest that the mechanism involved is the perception-behavior link, the recently documented finding (e.g., J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996) that the mere perception of another's behavior automatically increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior oneself. Experiment 1 showed that the motor behavior of participants unintentionally matched that of strangers with whom they worked on a task. Experiment 2 had confederates mimic the posture and movements of participants and showed that mimicry facilitates the smoothness of interactions and increases liking between interaction partners. Experiment 3 showed that dispositionally empathic individuals exhibit the chameleon effect to a greater extent than do other people.

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The chameleon effect: The perception–behavior link and social interaction.

What was noted by E. J. hanger (1978) remains true today: that much of contemporary psychological research is based on the assumption that people are consciously and systematically processing incoming information in order to construe and interpret their world and to plan and engage in courses of action. As did E. J. hanger, the authors question this assumption. First, they review evidence that the ability to exercise such conscious, intentional control is actually quite limited, so that most of moment-to-mom ent psychological life must occur through nonconscious means if it is to occur at all. The authors then describe the different possible mechanisms that produce automatic, environmental control over these various phenomena and review evidence establishing both the existence of these mechanisms as well as their consequences for judgments, emotions, and behavior. Three major forms of automatic self-regulation are identified: an automatic effect of perception on action, automatic goal pursuit, and a continual automatic evaluation of one's experience. From the accumulating evidence, the authors conclude that these various nonconscious mental systems perform the lion's share of the self-regulatory burden, beneficently keeping the individual grounded in his or her current environment. The strongest knowledge—that of the total unfreedom of the human will—is nonetheless the poorest in successes, for it always has the strongest opponent: human vanity. —Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

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The unbearable automaticity of being

Die wissenschaftliche Psychologie ist von der Alltagsverwendung des Begriffes „Psychologie“ abzugrenzen. Die wissenschaftliche Psychologie gliedert sich in verschiedene Teildisziplinen, von denen die Allgemeine Psychologie eine wesentliche und grundlegende Teildisziplin ist. Sie ist zum einen durch Universalismus gekennzeichnet, d.h. sie fragt nach dem, was Menschen gemeinsam ist, und zum anderen durch Funktionalismus, d.h. sie beschaftigt sich mit den Prozessen und Mechanismen psychischer Vorgange des Erlebens und Verhaltens (dem Wie) und weniger mit deren Inhalten (dem Was). Da die Allgemeine Psychologie die kausale Mechanik psychischer Vorgange erfassen will, ist ihre hauptsachliche Forschungsmethode das Experiment. Theorien in der Allgemeinen Psychologie gehen oft von abstrakten Prozessen der Informationsverarbeitung aus, welche im Gehirn als informationsverarbeitendes System implementiert sind. Erleben und Verhalten sind Ergebnisse der informationsverarbeitenden Prozesse.

Einleitung - Psychologie als Wissenschaft

Local and global control of saccade amplitude and fixation duration in continuous visual search

Common mechanisms in perception and action: Introductory remarks

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses three issues. The first issue pertains to some recent changes in the perspectives on perception that lead to a better understanding of the perception/personality interface. The second issue pertains to the systematical status of subliminal perception and to the issue of the possible function of consciousness. The last issue is a critical comment on some varieties of the microgenetic method and the limitations of the conclusions that can be drawn from the results of their application. The information processing view is considered to be the first approach toward perception that permits one to construct functional models of how a person's experiences affect his or her perceptions. In these models, “experiences” are represented in terms of memory traces of previous events interacting with actual stimulus information and contributing to the resulting percepts. With this view, the process of perceiving and its product, the percept, do not only depend on stimulus factors, but also on factors related to the perceiver's learning history.

Looking at Some new Look Problems from an Information Processing Point of View

We explored the developmental course of goal prediction and imitation as two commonly used measures of action understanding. In particular, we investigated the relationships between the measures in two complex multistep actions (hammering and pulling action) in children between 12 and 30 months (n = 64) in a between-subjects design. The results showed that the prediction of an action goal was related to the imitation in the hammering action, but not in the pulling action. The results are discussed in the light of current theories on goal prediction and imitation.

Wolfgang Prinz

Papers

Einleitung - Psychologie als Wissenschaft

Local and global control of saccade amplitude and fixation duration in continuous visual search

Common mechanisms in perception and action: Introductory remarks

Looking at Some new Look Problems from an Information Processing Point of View

Measuring action understanding: Relations between goal prediction and imitation