Neural mechanisms for the recognition of biological movements.
The visual recognition of complex movements and actions is crucial for the survival of many species. It is important not only for communication and recognition at a distance, but also for the learning of complex motor actions by imitation. Movement recognition has been studied in psychophysical, neurophysiological and imaging experiments, and several cortical areas involved in it have been identified. We use a neurophysiologically plausible and quantitative model as a tool for organizing and making sense of the experimental data, despite their growing size and complexity. We review the main experimental findings and discuss possible neural mechanisms, and show that a learning-based, feedforward model provides a neurophysiologically plausible and consistent summary of many key experimental results.
Giese
Martin A
MA
Laboratory for Action Representation and Learning, Department of Cognitive Neurology, University Clinic Tübingen, Spemannstrasse 34, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany. martin.giese@tuebingen.mpg.de
Poggio
Tomaso
T
D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009039:Motion Perception; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*