Biomedical subjects

Patric Bach

Publications and source records attributed to Patric Bach.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Implicit action encoding influences personal-trait judgments.

When an observed action (e.g., kicking) is compatible to a to be produced action (e.g., a foot-key response as compared to a finger-key response), then the self-produced action is more fluent, that is, it is more accurate and faster. A series of experiments explore the notion that vision-action compatibility effects can influence personal-trait judgments. It is demonstrated that when an observed individual carries out an action that is compatible with the participants' response, (1) this individual is identified more fluently, and (2) the observed individual's personality is attributed with the properties of the observed action. For example, if it is easier to identify one individual with a foot-response when he is seen kicking a ball, as compared to typing, he is perceived to be more 'sporty'. In contrast, if it is easier to identify one individual with a finger response when he is seen typing as compared to kicking a ball, he is associated with the 'academic' trait. These personal-trait judgment effects can be observed with explicit measures, where participants are asked to rate the sporty/academic nature of the person on a scale. They are also obtained when implicit measures are taken in a priming task, where participants are never explicitly asked to rate the personalities of the individuals. A control experiment rules out that these personal-trait effects are merely due to an association of motor responses (foot, finger) to individuals while identifying them, but that these effects depend on a prior manipulation of vision-action fluency.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Action comprehension: deriving spatial and functional relations.

A perceived action can be understood only when information about the action carried out and the objects used are taken into account. It was investigated how spatial and functional information contributes to establishing these relations. Participants observed static frames showing a hand wielding an instrument and a potential target object of the action. The 2 elements could either match or mismatch, spatially or functionally. Participants were required to judge only 1 of the 2 relations while ignoring the other. Both irrelevant spatial and functional mismatches affected judgments of the relevant relation. Moreover, the functional relation provided a context for the judgment of the spatial relation but not vice versa. The results are discussed in respect to recent accounts of action understanding.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Communicating hands: ERPs elicited by meaningful symbolic hand postures.

Meaningful and meaningless hand postures were presented to subjects who had to carry out a semantic discrimination task while electrical brain responses were recorded. Both meaningful and control sets of hand postures were matched as closely as possible. The ERPs elicited by meaningless hand postures showed an anteriorly distributed N300 and a centro-posteriorly distributed N400 component. The N300 probably reflects picture-specific processes, whereas the N400-effect probably reflects processing in an amodal semantic network. The scalp-distribution of the N400-effect, which is more posterior than usually reported in picture processing, suggests that the semantic representations of the concepts expressed by meaningful hand postures have similar properties to those of abstract words.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Cooperation of different neuronal systems during hand sign recognition.

Hand signs with symbolic meaning can often be utilized more successfully than words to communicate an intention; however, the underlying brain mechanisms are undefined. The present study using magnetoencephalography (MEG) demonstrates that the primary visual, mirror neuron, social recognition and object recognition systems are involved in hand sign recognition. MEG detected well-orchestrated multiple brain regional electrical activity among these neuronal systems. During the assessment of the meaning of hand signs, the inferior parietal, superior temporal sulcus (STS) and inferior occipitotemporal regions were simultaneously activated. These three regions showed similar time courses in their electrical activity, suggesting that they work together during hand sign recognition by integrating information in the ventral and dorsal pathways through the STS. The results also demonstrated marked right hemispheric predominance, suggesting that hand expression is processed in a manner similar to that in which social signs, such as facial expressions, are processed.

Adult↗