Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
Exploration...

Hierarchy of Motor Control

Hierarchy of Motor Control

The hierarchy of motor control refers to the different levels of organization and processing involved in controlling movement in the body. These levels range from higher cortical areas involved in planning and decision-making to lower spinal cord reflexes that respond automatically to external stimuli.

Functions of the Nervous System

Functions of the Nervous System

The nervous system is responsible for coordinating and regulating the body's functions. It functions through three main processes: sensory, integrative, and motor processes. Sensory function involves the detection and transmission of information about internal and external stimuli from sensory receptors to the CNS. The CNS processes this information through an integrative function, where it interprets and makes decisions based on the incoming sensory information. Finally, the motor function...

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

Sensory impulses related to touch, pressure, vibration, and proprioception from various body parts, such as the limbs, trunk, neck, and posterior head, travel to the cerebral cortex through the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway. The pathway’s name derives from the two white-matter tracts that convey the impulses: the spinal cord's posterior column and the brainstem's medial lemniscus. First-order sensory neurons extend their axons into the spinal cord, forming the posterior columns...

What is a Sensory System?

What is a Sensory System?

Sensory systems detect stimuli—such as light and sound waves—and transduce them into neural signals that can be interpreted by the nervous system. In addition to external stimuli detected by the senses, some sensory systems detect internal stimuli—such as the proprioceptors in muscles and tendons that send feedback about limb position.

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Constraining Stroke Order During Manual Symbol Learning Hinders Subsequent Recognition in Children Under 4 1/2 Years.

Frontiers in psychology·2020

Same author

Crossmodal enhancement in the LOC for visuohaptic object recognition over development.

Neuropsychologia·2015

Same author

SELF-GENERATED ACTIONS DURING LEARNING OBJECTS AND SOUNDS CREATE SENSORI-MOTOR SYSTEMS IN THE DEVELOPING BRAIN.

Cognition, brain, behavior : an interdisciplinary journal·2014

Same author

Young Children's Self-Generated Object Views and Object Recognition.

Journal of cognition and development : official journal of the Cognitive Development Society·2014

Same author

Multisensory convergence of visual and haptic object preference across development.

Neuropsychologia·2014

Same author

Expert individuation of objects increases activation in the fusiform face area of children.

NeuroImage·2012

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 1, 2026

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

Published on: October 4, 2015

Only self-generated actions create sensori-motor systems in the developing brain.

Karin Harman James¹, Shelley N Swain

¹Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, USA. khjames@indiana.edu

Developmental Science

|June 17, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Children learn object-word associations through active exploration. Self-generated actions build sensorimotor representations in the developing brain, unlike passive observation alone.

More Related Videos

Non-Invasive Modulation and Robotic Mapping of Motor Cortex in the Developing Brain

Non-Invasive Modulation and Robotic Mapping of Motor Cortex in the Developing Brain

Published on: July 1, 2019

Closed-loop Neuro-robotic Experiments to Test Computational Properties of Neuronal Networks

Closed-loop Neuro-robotic Experiments to Test Computational Properties of Neuronal Networks

Published on: March 2, 2015

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 1, 2026

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

Published on: October 4, 2015

Non-Invasive Modulation and Robotic Mapping of Motor Cortex in the Developing Brain

Non-Invasive Modulation and Robotic Mapping of Motor Cortex in the Developing Brain

Published on: July 1, 2019

Closed-loop Neuro-robotic Experiments to Test Computational Properties of Neuronal Networks

Closed-loop Neuro-robotic Experiments to Test Computational Properties of Neuronal Networks

Published on: March 2, 2015

Area of Science:

Developmental neuroscience
Cognitive psychology
Language acquisition

Background:

Sensory and motor systems interact during perception.
Developmental mechanisms of these sensorimotor connections are unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

Investigate how sensorimotor associations develop in children.
Determine the role of active versus observed interaction in learning object-word associations.

Main Methods:

Exposed children to novel verbs and objects via active exploration or experimenter demonstration.
Measured brain activity using functional neuroimaging during auditory and visual perception tasks.

Main Results:

Motor system recruitment during auditory perception occurred only after self-generated object interactions.
Action observation alone showed less motor activation compared to self-generated actions.

Conclusions:

Real-world interactions are crucial for building sensorimotor representations in the developing brain.
Active engagement with objects and environment shapes neural associations between words and actions.