NSF/SBE-BSF: Neural patterns underlying the development of planning in action production and anticipation in action perception

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

A remarkable aspect of motor skill is the ability to plan actions flexibly and purposefully using a variety of objects. We achieve this by planning our initial contact with the object with the end goal in mind, even when the end goal requires multiple steps to be achieved. Thus, the process of action planning involves integration of perception, cognition, and motor behavior. Presumably, a similar integrative process occurs when we anticipate other people's goals while observing them perform actions. Previous work shows that action planning begins in infancy and improves with age, but little is known about the accompanying brain activity that underlies these age-related improvements. This interdisciplinary study combines concepts, methods, and analytic techniques from developmental psychology, neuroscience, and computer science to understand age-related changes in action planning while children 1) perform an action with multiple steps to the goal and 2) while they observe someone else perform the action. The research uses a novel combination of recording methods for children: Video, eye tracking, motion tracking, and electroencephalography (EEG) will be recorded simultaneously. The methods and data will advance the field through open sharing of the research videos and physiological data in the Databrary repository. Algorithms and analysis techniques will be shared in the Open Science Framework. The investigators combine behavioral measures, neural activity recordings, and machine-learning techniques in order to understand how children and adults 1) perform complex motor tasks that involve anticipation of the end-goal and 2) passively observe others performing tasks that involve multi-step action planning in anticipation of the end-goal. Analyses of action performance will focus on the neural correlates of behavior at different stages of planning and will assess whether neural activity prior to beginning a movement can predict trial-to-trial behavioral variability in young children's ability to plan. Analyses of action observation will investigate age differences in neural activity while observing others performing actions that do, or do not, show evidence of long-range planning. The investigators will also compare the neurophysiological signatures of anticipation during passive action observation and during action performance. These findings will inform our understanding of the development of action planning across childhood. The multi-modal recording methods and the advanced multivariate analytic techniques will pave the way for research in STEM and other disciplines to explore developmental changes in children's brain and behavior. This award is made as part of the NSF/BSF Opportunity for Collaborations in Economics and Psychology.