title: When Action Observation Facilitates Visual Perception: Activation in Visuo-Motor Areas Contributes to Object Recognition.
abstract: Recent evidence suggests an interaction between the ventral visual-perceptual and dorsal visuo-motor brain systems during the course of object recognition. However, the precise function of the dorsal stream for perception remains to be determined. The present study specified the functional contribution of the visuo-motor system to visual object recognition using functional magnetic resonance imaging and event-related potential (ERP) during action priming. Primes were movies showing hands performing an action with an object with the object being erased, followed by a manipulable target object, which either afforded a similar or a dissimilar action (congruent vs. incongruent condition). Participants had to recognize the target object within a picture-word matching task. Priming-related reductions of brain activity were found in frontal and parietal visuo-motor areas as well as in ventral regions including inferior and anterior temporal areas. Effective connectivity analyses suggested functional influences of parietal areas on anterior temporal areas. ERPs revealed priming-related source activity in visuo-motor regions at about 120 ms and later activity in the ventral stream at about 380 ms. Hence, rapidly initiated visuo-motor processes within the dorsal stream functionally contribute to visual object recognition in interaction with ventral stream processes dedicated to visual analysis and semantic integration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Eun-Jin
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Sim
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Hannah B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Helbig
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany Max-Planck-Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Graf
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kiefer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: dynamic causal modeling; event-related potentials; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); object recognition; visuo-motor system