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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 27, 2026

The "Motor" in Implicit Motor Sequence Learning: A Foot-stepping Serial Reaction Time Task

The "Motor" in Implicit Motor Sequence Learning: A Foot-stepping Serial Reaction Time Task

Published on: May 3, 2018

The influence of visual training on predicting complex action sequences.

Emily S Cross¹, Waltraud Stadler, Jim Parkinson

¹Department of Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany. e.cross@bangor.ac.uk

Human Brain Mapping

|November 22, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The human brain

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Last Updated: May 27, 2026

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Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior

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Published on: April 16, 2014

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Motor Control

Background:

The action observation network (AON) involves parietal, premotor, and occipitotemporal regions.
AON activity during action observation aids in predicting movements for action understanding.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how the AON responds to observing and predicting actions that are difficult to reproduce.
To examine the effects of visual training on AON responses during action prediction.

Main Methods:

Neuroimaging (fMRI) was used to monitor brain activity before and after visual training.
Participants observed and predicted the reappearance of gymnasts and wind-up toys behind an occluder.
Visual training focused on predicting the reappearance timing of specific stimuli.

Main Results:

Predicting occluded actions, compared to perceiving them, activated inferior parietal, superior temporal, and cerebellar cortices.
Predicting untrained action sequences engaged occipitotemporal and premotor cortices more than trained sequences.
Occipitotemporal responses showed specialization, with body-processing regions activated for gymnasts and object-selective cortex for toys.

Conclusions:

Specific AON regions are recruited for predicting complex movements not easily mapped to the observer's own body.
Increased recruitment of AON regions correlates with improved prediction of less familiar action sequences.
Findings support the premotor model of action prediction and predictive coding theories of AON function.