title: Interaction between affordance and handedness recognition: a chronometric study.
abstract: The visualization of tools and manipulable objects activates motor-related areas in the cortex, facilitating possible actions toward them. This pattern of activity may underlie the phenomenon of object affordance. Some cortical motor neurons are also covertly activated during the recognition of body parts such as hands. One hypothesis is that different subpopulations of motor neurons in the frontal cortex are activated in each motor program; for example, canonical neurons in the premotor cortex are responsible for the affordance of visual objects, while mirror neurons support motor imagery triggered during handedness recognition. However, the question remains whether these subpopulations work independently. This hypothesis can be tested with a manual reaction time (MRT) task with a priming paradigm to evaluate whether the view of a manipulable object interferes with the motor imagery of the subject's hand. The MRT provides a measure of the course of information processing in the brain and allows indirect evaluation of cognitive processes. Our results suggest that canonical and mirror neurons work together to create a motor plan involving hand movements to facilitate successful object manipulation.
authors.affiliation: Unidade Acadêmica Ciências da Vida, Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Cajazeiras, PB, Brasil.
authors.forename: A P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Lameira
authors.affiliation: Instituto do Cérebro, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brasil.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psicologia, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Conde
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-graduação em Neurociências, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, RJ, Brasil.
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Gawryszewski
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*; D059167:Mirror Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009043:Motor Activity; D009046:Motor Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult