Biomedical subjects

Andrea C Pierno

Publications and source records attributed to Andrea C Pierno.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Transfer of interfered motor patterns to self from others.

Previous behavioural and neuroimaging data on humans demonstrated that kinematics and the level of brain activity vary according to whether participants reach towards and grasp a target object presented in isolation or flanked by a distractor object. Here we seek to explore whether a differential activation can be revealed by the mere observation of another person grasping an object in isolation or alongside a distractor. To this end we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to localize neural activity related to action observation that was influenced by the presence of a distractor object. We found that observing a human model reaching-to-grasp a three-dimensional target alongside a distractor elicits a differential level of activation in a network of areas typically involved during action observation: the dorsal sectors of the premotor cortex and the inferior frontal gyrus. Whereas our previous understanding of the human action observation system has been restricted to actions directed to single objects, we provide compelling evidence that areas within this network modulate with respect to the context in which the observed action takes place. This may prove to be a fundamental process for our understanding of how others' actions can be represented at a neural level.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

When gaze turns into grasp.

Previous research has provided evidence for a neural system underlying the observation of another person's hand actions. Is the neural system involved in this capacity also important in inferring another person's motor intentions toward an object from their eye gaze? In real-life situations, humans use eye movements to catch and direct the attention of others, often without any accompanying hand movements or speech. In an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study, subjects observed videos showing a human model either grasping a target object (grasping condition) or simply gazing (gaze condition) at the same object. These two conditions were contrasted with each other and against a control condition in which the human model was standing behind the object without performing any gazing or grasping action. The results revealed activations within the dorsal premotor cortex, the inferior frontal gyrus, the inferior parietal lobule, and the superior temporal sulcus in both "grasping" and "gaze" conditions. These findings suggest that signaling the presence of an object through gaze elicits in an observer a similar neural response to that elicited by the observation of a reach-to-grasp action performed on the same object.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Effects of increasing visual load on aurally and visually guided target acquisition in a virtual environment.

The aim of the present study is to investigate interactions between vision and audition during a target acquisition task performed in a virtual environment. We measured the time taken to locate a visual target (acquisition time) signalled by auditory and/or visual cues in conditions of variable visual load. Visual load was increased by introducing a secondary visual task. The auditory cue was constructed using virtual three-dimensional (3D) sound techniques. The visual cue was constructed in the form of a 3D updating arrow. The results suggested that both auditory and visual cues reduced acquisition time as compared to an uncued condition. Whereas the visual cue elicited faster acquisition time than the auditory cue, the combination of the two cues produced the fastest acquisition time. The introduction of secondary visual task differentially affected acquisition time depending on cue modality. In conditions of high visual load, acquiring a target signalled by the auditory cue led to slower and more error-prone performance than acquiring a target signalled by either the visual cue alone or by both the visual and auditory cues.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Comparing effects of 2-D and 3-D visual cues during aurally aided target acquisition.

The aim of the present study was to investigate interactions between vision and audition during a visual target acquisition task performed in a virtual environment. In two experiments, participants were required to perform an acquisition task guided by auditory and/or visual cues. In both experiments the auditory cues were constructed using virtual 3-D sound techniques based on nonindividualized head-related transfer functions. In Experiment 1 the visual cue was constructed in the form of a continuously updated 2-D arrow. In Experiment 2 the visual cue was a nonstereoscopic, perspective-based 3-D arrow. The results suggested that virtual spatial auditory cues reduced acquisition time but were not as effective as the virtual visual cues. Experiencing the 3-D perspective-based arrow rather than the 2-D arrow produced a faster acquisition time not only in the visually aided conditions but also when the auditory cues were presented in isolation. Suggested novel applications include providing 3-D nonstereoscopic, perspective-based visual information on radar displays, which may lead to a better integration with spatial virtual auditory information.

Adolescent↗