Article Figures & Data
Figures
- Figure 1.
Sample stimuli and the object assembly task. Subjects watched video clips of objects being assembled from a set of six parts. A, Learn condition clips began with parts in a standard arrangement and ended with a completed object. B, Perceptual Control condition clips began with a fully assembled object and ended with the disassembled parts in the standard arrangement. The resting baseline condition is not shown.
- Figure 2.
Increased neural activity associated with passive action observation and the intention to learn. A, Relative to the resting baseline, passive action observation (Perceptual Control condition) is associated with increased activation in inferior frontal cortex (IFc) and inferior parietal cortex (IPL) of the mirror system as well as in areas associated with motor learning, including bilateral PMd, basal ganglia [globus pallidus (GP)], cerebellum (Cr), and pulvinar nucleus (Pul). B, Similar increases relative to baseline are observed when watching actions with the intention to learn (Learn condition). Note that pre-SMA is only detected in the Learn condition. In this and all figures, colors represent Z-statistic values. L, Left hemisphere; R, right hemisphere.
- Figure 3.
Areas showing increased activation when watching the others' actions with the intention to learn component actions and their sequences. Direct statistical comparison between the Learn and the Perceptual Control conditions reveals bilateral increases throughout the parietofrontal mirror system including bilateral inferior frontal cortex (IFc) and inferior parietal cortex (IPL). Increases are also visible in areas of the sequence learning system including PMd, pre-SMA, basal ganglia [globus pallidus (GP)], cerebellum (Cr), and hippocampus (Hi). L, Left hemisphere; R, right hemisphere.
- Figure 4.
Learning-related activations in right intraparietal cortex. Among regions showing greater activity when attempting to learn observed actions (Learn vs Perceptual Control condition), only activity within and along the right IPS (global peak: z = 3.46; p = 0.007; voxels, 479; located at x = 32, y = −44, z = 28 in standard Montreal Neurological Institute space) correlates significantly with subsequent performances on the object assembly task. A, This area is shown here on a population-averaged surface rendering that has been partially unfolded to reveal areas within sulci (Van Essen et al., 2001; Van Essen, 2005). B, The correlation between group normalized (mean of 0) performance scores for each subject (n = 19) on the manual object assembly task versus their mean activity (contrast of parameter estimate values for the Learn condition relative to resting baseline) computed across all voxels within the intraparietal region shown in A.
- Figure 5.
Areas showing increased activation when watching the others' actions with the intention to learn component actions. Similar to experiment 1 (see Fig. 3), direct statistical comparison between the Learn and the Perceptual Control conditions reveals bilateral increases throughout the parietofrontal mirror system including bilateral inferior frontal cortex (IFc) and inferior parietal cortex (IPL). Although participants are not required to learn the demonstrated sequences, increases in activity are still detected in areas of the sequence learning system including PMd, pre-SMA, basal ganglia [globus pallidus (GP)], cerebellum (Cr), and hippocampus (Hi). L, Left hemisphere; R, right hemisphere.
- Figure 6.
Areas showing increased activity in association with the intention to learn the demonstrated sequence of action components. Direct statistical comparison of experiment 1 versus experiment 2 reveals increased activity in association with the intention to learn the demonstrated sequences throughout the parietofrontal action encoding system [inferior frontal cortex (IFc) and inferior parietal cortex (IPL)] and within areas involved in motor representation, including PMd, pre-SMA, cerebellum (Cr), and basal ganglia [globus pallidus (GP)]. L, Left hemisphere; R, right hemisphere.
Tables
Z value x coordinate (mm) y coordinate (mm) z coordinate (mm) 3.46 32 −44 28 3.35 22 −50 44 3.07 22 −54 52 3.03 20 −60 56 2.92 12 −62 62 2.89 6 −60 64 -
Areas are part of a contiguous cluster (479 voxels) within and along the right IPS, the activity of which is significantly correlated with a subsequent performance on the object assembly task (clusters determined by thresholding Z-statistic images with Z > 2.3 and a corrected cluster significance threshold of p < 0.05). Values refer to locations relative to the Montreal Neurological Institute standard template brain.
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