16 May
2011
16 May
'11
5:03 p.m.
The next talk in the CDC seminar series will be given by
Sarah Lloyd-Fox, Birkbeck, University of London
Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 5 PM
Location: CEU Cognitive Development Center, Hattyú u. 14, 3rd floor
Cortical mapping of human action perception during infancy: A functional
Near Infrared Spectroscopy investigation <http://www.ceu.hu/node/21879>
Abstract: The ability to identify cues from motion, such as eye gaze shifts,
emotional expression, articulation of the mouth and manual gestures,
provides the foundation of social perception and allows us to comprehend and
interpret the intentions, language, emotions and desires of others. The
cortical mapping of human action perception in the infant brain is poorly
understood, largely due to the limitations of available neuroimaging
methods. The research presented in this talk investigated cortical
activation to facial and manual human actions using functional near infrared
spectroscopy (fNIRS). fNIRS provides an elegant solution to bridge this
methodological gap, and is an emerging new technology for investigating
developmental cognitive neuroscience. Over a series of experiments, four to
six-month-old infants watched life-size videos of adult actors moving their
hand, their mouth, or their eyes, while haemodynamic responses were recorded
over the frontal and temporal cortices. The data presented in Study 1 and 2
suggests that a localised superior temporal region of the cortex is
responsive to the observation of complex social human actions, and not to
non-human mechanical actions. Study 3 reveals localised cortical responses
to differing dynamic facial and manual human action cues in regions of the
frontal and temporal cortex with partially separable localised responses
evident to different types of human movements. Finally Study 4, which
investigated these effects further, presents optical data alongside
concurrent eye-tracking data and additional behavioural measures of manual
dexterity. These preliminary findings suggest that infant’s own fine motor
abilities may be correlated with cortical activation to the perception of
another’s hand movements. Taken together, this work illuminates hitherto
undocumented maps of cortical activation to human action perception in the
early developing brain, and demonstrate the potential that fNIRS offers for
developmental research.
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