Sensorimotor learning refers to improvements that occur through practice in the performance of sensory-guided motor behaviors. Leveraging novel technical capabilities of an immersive virtual environment, we probed the component kinematic processes that mediate sensorimotor learning. Twenty naïve subjects performed a simulated marksmanship task modeled after Olympic Trap Shooting standards. We measured movement kinematics and shooting performance as participants practiced 350 trials while receiving trial-by-trial feedback about shooting success. Spatiotemporal analysis of motion tracking elucidated the ballistic and (...) refinement phases of hand movements. We found systematic changes in movement kinematics that accompanied improvements in shot accuracy during training, though reaction and response times did not change over blocks. In particular, we observed longer, slower, and more precise ballistic movements that replaced effort spent on corrections and refinement. Collectively, these results leverage developments in immersive virtual reality technology to quantify and compare the kinematics of movement during early learning of full-body sensorimotor orienting. (shrink)

Learning to perceive is faced with a classical paradox: if understanding is required for perception, how can we learn to perceive something new, something we do not yet understand? According to the sensorimotor approach, perception involves mastery of regular sensorimotor co-variations that depend on the agent and the environment, also known as the “laws” of sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs). In this sense, perception involves enacting relevant sensorimotor skills in each situation. It is important for this proposal (...) that such skills can be learned and refined with experience and yet up to this date, the sensorimotor approach has had no explicit theory of perceptual learning. The situation is made more complex if we acknowledge the open-ended nature of human learning. In this paper we propose Piaget’s theory of equilibration as a potential candidate to fulfill this role. This theory highlights the importance of intrinsic sensorimotor norms, in terms of the closure of sensorimotor schemes. It also explains how the equilibration of a sensorimotor organization faced with novelty or breakdowns proceeds by re-shaping pre-existing structures in coupling with dynamical regularities of the world. This way learning to perceive is guided by the equilibration of emerging forms of skillful coping with the world. We demonstrate the compatibility between Piaget’s theory and the sensorimotor approach by providing a dynamical formalization of equilibration to give an explicit micro-genetic account of sensorimotor learning and, by extension, of how we learn to perceive. This allows us to draw important lessons in the form of general principles for open-ended sensorimotor learning, including the need for an intrinsic normative evaluation by the agent itself. We also explore implications of our micro-genetic account at the personal level. (shrink)

Almost all words are the names of categories. We can learn most of our words (and hence our categories) from dictionary definitions, but not all of them. Some have to be learned from direct experience. To understand a word from its definition we need to already understand the words used in the definition. This is the “Symbol Grounding Problem” [1]. How many words (and which ones) do we need to ground directly in sensorimotor experience in order to be able (...) to learn all other words via definition alone? The answer may shed some light both on the developmental origin of word meanings and on the evolutionary origin and adaptive value of language. We used an algorithm to reduce each of our dictionaries (Longmans LDOCE, Cambridge CIDE and WordNet) to its “grounding kernel” (“Kernel”) (which turned out to be about 10% of the dictionary) by systematically eliminating.. (shrink)

The sequence-in/sequence-out cerebellar machinery is considered from the computational point of view. We outline a learning framework which discriminates short-term from long-term learning and is able to explain single-trial adaptation to unexpected loads.

Sensorimotor theory claims that what you do and what you know how to do constitutes your visual experience. Central to the theory is the claim that such experience depends on a special kind of knowledge or understanding. I assess this commitment to knowledge in the light of three objections to the theory: the empirical implausibility objection, the learning/post-learning objection and the causal-constitutive objection. I argue that although the theory can respond to the first two objections, its commitment (...) to know-how ultimately renders it vulnerable to the third and arguably most serious objection. I then suggest that sensorimotor theory has two options: concede the causal-constitutive objection or challenge it. I shall argue for the latter. I will claim that a radical sensorimotor theory offers the best means of responding to this objection. (shrink)

Language learning in preschool children tends to be likened to school-like learning, using verbal explanations more than actions when new words are learned during storytelling. Based on previous results that showed that sensorimotor elements help language learning at this age this study aimed to investigate whether positive emotions also act like essential elements for language learning. Fifty-five 4 to 5 year olds listened to a modified version of the Town Musicians of Bremen story. There were (...) four conditions: one that included emotions and sensorimotor elements during storytelling, one that had only emotions, one that had only sensorimotor elements, and one that had neither emotions nor sensorimotor elements. Results show no advantage of positive emotions by themselves, and a clear advantage of sensorimotor elements. Implications are discussed with regard to inducing emotions versus naturally arising emotional states, and also to the embodied learning perspective. (shrink)

How accurate is the picture of the human mind that has emerged from studies in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science? Anybody with an interest in how minds work - how we learn about the world and how we remember people and events - may feel dissatisfied with the answers contemporary science has to offer. Sensorimotor Life draws on current theoretical developments in the enactive approach to life and mind. It examines and expands the premises of the sciences of the (...) human mind, while developing an alternative picture closer to people's daily experiences. Enactive ideas are applied and extended, providing a theoretically rich, naturalistic account of meaning and agency. The book includes a dynamical systems description of different types of sensorimotor regularities or sensorimotor contingencies; a dynamical interpretation of Piaget's theory of equilibration to ground the concept of sensorimotor mastery; and a theory of agency as organized networks of sensorimotor schemes, as well as its implications for embodied subjectivity. Written for students and researchers of cognitive science, the authors offer a fuller view of the mind, a view better attuned to the experiences of people who live, work, love, struggle, and age, thrown into a world of meaningful relations they help create. Additionally, the book is of interest to neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and philosophers of science. (shrink)

Efficient prospective motor control, evident in human activity from birth, reveals an adaptive intentionality of a primary, pre-reflective, and pre-conceptual nature that we identify here as sensorimotor intentionality. We identify a structural continuity between the emergence of this earliest form of prospective movement and the structure of mental states as intentional or content-directed in more advanced forms. We base our proposal on motor control studies, from foetal observations through infancy. These studies reveal movements are guided by anticipations of future (...) effects, even from before birth. This implies that these movements, even if they are simple and discrete, are the actions of an intentional agent. We develop this notion to present a theory of the developing organisation of a core feature of cognition as embodied agent action, from early single actions with proximal prospectivity to the complex serial ordering of actions into projects to reach distal goals. We claim the prospective structural continuity from early and simple actions to later complex projects of serially-ordered actions confirms the existence of an ontogenetically primary form of content–directedness that is a driver for learning and development. Its implications for understanding autism are discussed. (shrink)

Galvanic vestibular stimulation is a non-invasive method of electrically stimulating the vestibular system. We investigated whether the application of GVS can alter the learning of new functional mobility and manual control tasks and whether learning can be retained following GVS application. In a between-subjects experiment design, 36 healthy subjects performed repeated trials, capturing the learning of either a functional mobility task, navigating an obstacle course on a compliant surface with degraded visual cues or a manual control task, (...) using a joystick to null self-roll tilt against a pseudo-random disturbance while seated in the dark. In the “learning” phase of trials, bilateral, bipolar GVS was applied continuously. The GVS waveform also differed between subjects in each task group: white noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation at 0.3 mA high-level random GVS at 0.7 mA, or with the absence of stimulation. Following the “learning” trials, all subjects were blindly transitioned to sham GVS, upon which they immediately completed another series of trials to assess any aftereffects. In the functional mobility task, we found nGVS significantly improved task learning. Further, improvements in learning the functional mobility task with nGVS were retained, even once the GVS application was stopped. The benefits in learning with nGVS were not observed in the manual control task. High level GVS tended to inhibit learning in both tasks, but not significantly so. Even once the high-level stimulation was stopped, the impaired performance remained. Improvements in learning with nGVS may be due to increased information throughput resulting from stochastic resonance. The benefit of nGVS for functional mobility, but not manual control nulling, may be due to the multisensory, strategic, motor coordination, or spatial awareness aspects of the former task. Learning improvements with nGVS have the potential to benefit individuals who perform functional mobility tasks, such as astronauts, firefighters, high performance athletes, and soldiers. (shrink)

Background: Short latency afferent inhibition provides a method to investigate mechanisms of sensorimotor integration. Cholinergic involvement in the SAI phenomena suggests that SAI may provide a marker of cognitive influence over implicit sensorimotor processes. Consistent with this hypothesis, we previously demonstrated that visual attention load suppresses SAI circuits preferentially recruited by anterior-to-posterior -, but not posterior-to-anterior -current induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation. However, cerebellar modulation can also modulate these same AP-sensitive SAI circuits. Yet, the consequences of concurrent cognitive (...) and implicit cerebellar influences over these AP circuits are unknown.Objective: We used cerebellar intermittent theta-burst stimulation to determine whether the cerebellar modulation of sensory to motor projections interacts with the attentional modulation of sensory to motor circuits probed by SAI.Methods: We assessed AP-SAI and PA-SAI during a concurrent visual detection task of varying attention load before and after cerebellar iTBS.Results: Before cerebellar iTBS, a higher visual attention load suppressed AP-SAI, but not PA-SAI, compared to a lower visual attention load. Post-cerebellar iTBS, the pattern of AP-SAI in response to visual attention load, was reversed; a higher visual attention load enhanced AP-SAI compared to a lower visual attention load. Cerebellar iTBS did not affect PA-SAI regardless of visual attention load.Conclusion: These findings suggest that attention and cerebellar networks converge on overlapping AP-sensitive circuitry to influence motor output by controlling the strength of the afferent projections to the motor cortex. This interaction has important implications for understanding the mechanisms of motor performance and learning. (shrink)

I draw on empirical results from perceptual and motor learning to argue for an anti-intellectualist position on skill. Anti-intellectualists claim that skill or know-how is non-propositional. Recent proponents of the view have stressed the flexible but fine-grained nature of skilled control as supporting their position. However, they have left the nature of the mental representations underlying such control undertheorized. This leaves open several possible strategies for the intellectualist, particularly with regard to skill learning. Propositional knowledge may structure the (...) inputs to sensorimotor learning, may constitute the outcomes of said learning, or may be needed for the employment of learned skill. I argue that sensorimotor learning produces multi-scale associational representations, and that these representations are of the right sort to underlie flexible and fine-grained control. I then suggest that their content is vitally indeterminate with regard to propositional content attribution, because they exhibit a kind of open-ended structure. I articulate this kind of structure, and use it to respond to the three intellectualist strategies. I then show how the perspective I advance offers insights for understanding both instruction and expert practice. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the qualities of living and learning in digital cultures, the design of digital technologies and the philosophical history that has informed that design. It takes as its critical perspective the field of embodied cognition as it has developed over the last three decades, in concert with emerging neurophysiology and neurocognitive research. From this perspective the paper considers cognitive, neurological and physiological effects that are increasingly becoming noticed in user populations, especially young populations. I call this (...) class of conditions ‘sensorimotor debility’, to distinguish it from other psychological, social, cultural and political symptoms associated with computer, internet and social media use. (shrink)

Adapting gross motor movement to match the tempo of auditory rhythmic stimulation is a complex skill with a long developmental trajectory. Drumming tasks have previously been employed with infants and young children to measure the emergence of rhythmic entrainment, and may provide a tool for identification of those with atypical rhythm perception and production. Here we describe a new protocol for measuring infant rhythmic movement that can be employed at scale. In the current study, 50 two-year-olds drummed along with the (...) audiovisual presentation of four steady rhythms, using videos of isochronous drumming at 400, 500, 600, and 700 ms IOI, and provided their spontaneous motor tempo by drumming in silence. Toddlers’ drumming is observed from video recordings made in participants’ own homes, obtained via the Lookit platform for online infant studies. We use OpenPose deep-learning model to generate wireframe estimates of hand and body location for each video. The vertical displacement of the hand was extracted, and the power and frequency of infants’ rhythmic entrainment quantified using Fast Fourier Transforms. We find evidence for age-appropriate tempo-flexibility in our sample. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of a fully digital approach to measuring rhythmic entrainment from within the participant’s home, from early in development. (shrink)

The mechanistic model depicts scientific explanations as involving the discovery of multi-level, organized components that constitute a target phenomenon. Meanwhile, sensorimotor enactivism purports to offer a scientifically informed account of perceptual experience as a skill-laden interactive relationship, constitutively involving both perceiver and world, rather than as an agent-bound representation of the world. Insofar as sensorimotor enactivism identifies an empirically tractable phenomenon – skillful agent-world interaction – and mechanistic explanation establishes the subpersonal components of this phenomenon, the two approaches (...) allow for a fruitful division of labor in investigating perceptual experience. On closer inspection, however, two challenges arise. First, the “representation challenge” arises because promising attempts to set out implementational details of our sensorimotor interaction with the world implicate cognitive representations, creating tension with sensorimotor enactivism’s nonrepresentational commitments. Second, the “reconstitution challenge” arises when mechanistic explanation not only uncovers the components of some established phenomenon but plays a role in “reconstituting” this phenomenon. This means that, through investigating mechanisms, perceptual experience may be reconceived such that its constituents are wholly organism-bound. We explore both challenges to the compatibility of mechanism and sensorimotor enactivism and examine possible solutions. The result is a clearer understanding of the tensions and opportunities for learning between the frameworks. (shrink)

The cerebellum probably obeys the rules of sensorimotor integration common in the nervous system. One such a rule is formulated: the nervous system organizes spatial frames of reference for the sensorimotor apparatus and produces voluntary movements by shifting their origin points. We give examples of spatial frames of reference for different single- and multi-joint movements including locomotion and also illustrate that the process of motor development and learning may depend critically on the formation of appropriate frames of (...) reference and the organism's ability to manage them. We suggest that a solution to the problem of sensorimotor integration may not be trivial and may actually change the mental and experimental paradigms used in the understanding of the cerebellum and other brain structures, [HOUK et al.; SIMPSON et al.; SMITH; TIIACH]. (shrink)

Theories of embodied cognition assume that concepts are grounded in non-linguistic, sensorimotor experience. In support of this assumption, previous studies have shown that upwards response movements are faster than downwards movements after participants have been presented with words whose referents are typically located in the upper vertical space. This is taken as evidence that processing these words reactivates sensorimotor experiential traces. This congruency effect was also found for novel words, after participants learned these words as labels for novel (...) objects that they encountered either in their upper or lower visual field. While this indicates that direct experience with a word's referent is sufficient to evoke said congruency effects, the present study investigates whether this direct experience is also a necessary condition. To this end, we conducted five experiments in which participants learned novel words from purely linguistic input: Novel words were presented in pairs with real up- or down-words ; they were presented in natural sentences where they replaced these real words ; they were presented as new labels for these real words ; and they were presented as labels for novel combined concepts based on these real words. In all five experiments, we did not find any congruency effects elicited by the novel words; however, participants were always able to make correct explicit judgements about the vertical dimension associated to the novel words. These results suggest that direct experience is necessary for reactivating experiential traces, but this reactivation is not a necessary condition for understanding the corresponding aspects of word meaning. (shrink)

How and when do we learn to understand other people’s perspectives and possibly divergent beliefs? This question has elicited much theoretical and empirical research. A puzzling finding has been that toddlers perform well on so-called implicit false belief (FB) tasks but do not show such capacities on traditional explicit FB tasks. I propose a navigational approach, which offers a hitherto ignored way of making sense of the seemingly contradictory results. The proposal involves a distinction between how we navigate FBs as (...) they relate to (1) our current affordances (here & now navigation) as opposed to (2) presently non-actual relations, where we need to leave our concrete embodied/situated viewpoint (counterfactual navigation). It is proposed that whereas toddlers seem able to understand FBs in their current affordance space, they do not yet possess the resources to navigate in abstraction from such concrete affordances, which explicit FB tests seem to require. It is hypothesized that counterfactual navigation depends on the development of “sensorimotor priors,” i.e., statistical expectations of own kinesthetic re-afference, which evidence now suggests matures around age four, consistent with core findings of explicit FB performance. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “A Computational Constructivist Model as an Anticipatory Learning Mechanism for Coupled Agent–Environment Systems” by Filipo Studzinski Perotto. Upshot: Constructivist theory gives a nice high-level account of how knowledge can be autonomously developed by an agent interacting with an environment, but it fails to detail the mechanisms needed to bridge the gap between low levels of sensorimotor data and higher levels of cognition. AI workers are trying to bridge this gap, using task-specific engineering (...) approaches, without any principled theory to guide them; they could use help from psychologists. (shrink)

We report the results of an experiment in which human subjects were trained to perform a perceptual matching task. Subjects were asked to manipulate comparison objects until they matched target objects using the fewest manipulations possible. An unusual feature of the experimental task is that efficient performance requires an understanding of the hidden or latent causal structure governing the relationships between actions and perceptual outcomes. We use two benchmarks to evaluate the quality of subjects’ learning. One benchmark is based (...) on optimal performance as calculated by a dynamic programming procedure. The other is based on an adaptive computational agent that uses a reinforcement-learning method known as Q-learning to learn to perform the task. Our analyses suggest that subjects were successful learners. In particular, they learned to perform the perceptual matching task in a near-optimal manner (i.e., using a small number of manipulations) at the end of training. Subjects were able to achieve near-optimal performance because they learned, at least partially, the causal structure underlying the task. In addition, subjects’ performances were broadly consistent with those of model-based reinforcement-learning agents that built and used internal models of how their actions influenced the external environment. We hypothesize that people will achieve near-optimal performances on tasks requiring sequences of action—especially sensorimotor tasks with underlying latent causal structures—when they can detect the effects of their actions on the environment, and when they can represent and reason about these effects using an internal mental model. (shrink)

Word learning is basic to foreign language acquisition, however time consuming and not always successful. Empirical studies have shown that traditional (visual) word learning can be enhanced by gestures. The gesture benefit has been attributed to depth of encoding. Gestures can lead to depth of encoding because they trigger semantic processing and sensorimotor enrichment of the novel word. However, the neural underpinning of depth of encoding is still unclear. Here, we combined an fMRI and a behavioral study (...) to investigate word encoding online. In the scanner, participants encoded 30 novel words of an artificial language created for experimental purposes and their translation into the subjects’ native language. Participants encoded the words three times visually, audiovisually, and by additionally observing semantically related gestures performed by an actress. Hemodynamic activity during word encoding revealed the recruitment of cortical areas involved in stimulus processing. In this study, depth of encoding can be spelt out in terms of sensorimotor brain networks that grow larger the more sensory modalities are linked to the novel word. Word retention outside the scanner documented a positive effect of gestures in a free recall test in the short-term. (shrink)

How do we align the distinct neural patterns associated with the articulation and the acoustics of the same utterance in order to guide behaviors that demand sensorimotor interaction, such as vocal learning and the use of feedback during speech production? One hypothesis is that while the representations are distinct, their patterns of change over time (temporal modulation) are systematically related. This hypothesis is pursued in the exploratory study described here, using paired articulatory and acoustic data from the X-ray (...) microbeam corpus. The results show that modulation in both articulatory movement and in the changing acoustics has the form of a pulse-like structure related to syllable structure. The pulses are aligned with each other in time, and the modulation functions are robustly correlated. These results encourage further investigation and testing of the hypothesis. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to identify the possibility of using the sensorimotor method for modeling variable situations of the use of physical force by police officers and organizing the level structure of the sequential use of variable situations for training cadets and students of educational organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The scientific novelty lies in identifying the effectiveness of sensorimotor method in situational training of police patrol officers, which makes it possible to (...) rank simulated situations of the use of physical force, including combat techniques of struggle by levels of complexity, and thereby realizing the didactic principle of consistency and accessibility of learning educational material. As a result, the effectiveness of the use of the developed sensorimotor method for teaching police patrol officers to use the physical method was proved. (shrink)

The grounding of symbols in computational models of linguistic abilities is one of the fundamental properties of psychologically plausible cognitive models. In this article, we present an embodied model for the grounding of language in action based on epigenetic robots. Epigenetic robotics is one of the new cognitive modeling approaches to modeling autonomous mental development. The robot model is based on an integrative vision of language in which linguistic abilities are strictly dependent on and grounded in other behaviors and skills. (...) It uses simulated robots that learn through imitation the names of basic actions. Robots also learn higher order action concepts through the process of grounding transfer. The simulation demonstrates how new, higher order behavioral abilities can be autonomously built on previously grounded basic action categories following linguistic interaction with human users. (shrink)

Learning to play a musical instrument involves mapping visual + auditory cues to motor movements and anticipating transitions. Inspired by the serial reaction time task and artificial grammar learning, we investigated explicit and implicit knowledge of statistical learning in a sensorimotor task. Using a between-subjects design with four groups, one group of participants were provided with visual cues and followed along by tapping the corresponding fingertip to their thumb, while using a computer glove. Another group additionally (...) received accompanying auditory tones; the final two groups received sensory cues but did not provide a motor response—all together following a 2 × 2 design. Implicit knowledge was measured by response time, whereas explicit knowledge was assessed using probe tests. Findings indicate that explicit knowledge was best with only the single modality, but implicit knowledge was best when all three modalities were involved. (shrink)

Rich sensorimotor interaction facilitates language learning and is presumed to ground conceptual representations. Yet empirical support for early stages of embodied word learning is currently lacking. Finding evidence that sensorimotor interaction shapes learned linguistic representations would provide crucial support for embodied language theories. We developed a gamified word learning experiment in virtual reality in which participants learned the names of six novel objects by grasping and manipulating objects with either their left or right hand. Participants (...) then completed a word–color match task in which they were tested on the same six words and objects. Participants were faster to respond to stimuli in the match task when the response hand was compatible with the hand used to interact with the named object, an effect we refer to as affordance compatibility. In two follow up experiments, we found that merely observing virtual hands interact with the objects was sufficient to acquire a smaller affordance compatibility effect, and we found that the compatibility effect was driven primarily by responses with a compatible hand and not by responses in a compatible spatial location. Our results support theoretical views of language which ground word representations in sensorimotor experiences, and they suggest promising future routes to explore the sensorimotor foundations of higher cognition through immersive virtual experiments. (shrink)

This paper takes an embodied and extended cognition perspective to ER integration – a cognitive process through which a learner integrates external representations (ERs) in a domain, with her internal (mental) model, as she interacts with, uses, understands and transforms between those ERs. In the paper, I argue for a theoretical as well as empirical shift in future investigations of ER integration, by proposing a model of cognitive mechanisms underlying the process, based on recent advances in extended and embodied cognition. (...) I present this new model in contrast to the still dominant classical cognitivist (information processing) approaches to ER integration, and the educational technology intervention designs such approaches inspire. I then exemplify this distinction between the information processing model and the new model through a case of arithmetic problem solving. Corroborative neuroscience evidence presented in relation to this case provides empirical support for the new model by showing how bodily actions (sensorimotor mechanisms) are critical to ER integration and learning. Finally, as educational implications of the new model, I demonstrate the need for: (i) re-viewing the development of ER integration and expertise as fine-tuning of the learner's action or sensorimotor system, and (ii) a shift of focus in new-media intervention design principles based on this newer understanding of ER integration in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. (shrink)

Some of the features of animal and human categorical perception (CP) for color, pitch and speech are exhibited by neural net simulations of CP with one-dimensional inputs: When a backprop net is trained to discriminate and then categorize a set of stimuli, the second task is accomplished by "warping" the similarity space (compressing within-category distances and expanding between-category distances). This natural side-effect also occurs in humans and animals. Such CP categories, consisting of named, bounded regions of similarity space, may be (...) the ground level out of which higher-order categories are constructed; nets are one possible candidate for the mechanism that learns the sensorimotor invariants that connect arbitrary names (elementary symbols?) to the nonarbitrary shapes of objects. This paper examines how and why such compression/expansion effects occur in neural nets. (shrink)

Objects: To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of in-bed wearable elbow robot training for motor recovery in patients with early and late subacute stroke.Methods: Eleven in-patient stroke survivors received 15 sessions of training over about 4 weeks of hospital stay. During each hourly training, participants received passive stretching and active movement training with motivating games using a wearable elbow rehabilitation robot. Isometric maximum muscle strength of elbow flexors and extensors was evaluated using the robot at the beginning and end of (...) each training session. Clinical measures including Fugl-Meyer Assessment of upper extremity, Motricity Index for upper extremities, Modified Ashworth Scale were measured at baseline, after the 4-week training program, and at a 1-month follow-up. The muscle strength recovery curve over the training period was characterized as a logarithmic learning curve with three parameters.Results: At the baseline, participants had moderate to severe upper limb motor impairment {FMA-UE [median ]: 28 } and mild spasticity in elbow flexors {MAS [median ]: 0 }. After about 4 weeks of training, significant improvements were observed in FMA-UE and MI, and the improvements were sustained at the follow-up. The elbow flexors MVC significantly increased by 1.93 Nm and the elbow extensor MVC increased by 0.68 Nm. Muscle strength recovery curve showed that patients with severe upper limb motor impairment had a greater improvement rate in elbow flexor strength than those with moderate motor impairment.Conclusion: In-bed wearable elbow robotic rehabilitation is feasible and effective in improving biomechanical and clinical outcomes for early and late subacute stroke in-patients. Results from the pilot study suggested that patients with severe upper limb motor impairment may benefit more from the robot training compared to those with moderate impairment. (shrink)

Context: The advent of a general artificial intelligence mechanism that learns like humans do would represent the realization of an old and major dream of science. It could be achieved by an artifact able to develop its own cognitive structures following constructivist principles. However, there is a large distance between the descriptions of the intelligence made by constructivist theories and the mechanisms that currently exist. Problem: The constructivist conception of intelligence is very powerful for explaining how cognitive development takes place. (...) However, until now, no computational model has successfully demonstrated the underlying mechanisms necessary to realize it. In other words, the artificial intelligence (AI) community has not been able to give rise to a system that convincingly implements the principles of intelligence as postulated by constructivism, and that is also capable of dealing with complex environments. Results: This paper presents the constructivist anticipatory learning mechanism (CALM), an agent learning mechanism based on the constructivist approach of AI. It is designed to deal dynamically and interactively with environments that are at the same time partially deterministic and partially observable. CALM can model the regularities experienced in the interaction with the environment, on the sensorimotor level as well, as by constructing abstract or high-level representational concepts. The created model provides the knowledge necessary to generate the agent behavior. The paper also presents the coupled agent environment system (CAES) meta-architecture, which defines a conception of an autonomous agent, situated in the environment, embodied and intrinsically motivated. Implications: The paper can be seen as a step towards a computational implementation of constructivist principles, on the one hand suggesting a further perspective of this refreshing movement on the AI field (which is still too steeped in a behaviorist influence and dominated by probabilistic models and narrow applied approaches), and on the other hand bringing some abstract descriptions of the cognitive process into a more concrete dimension, in the form of algorithms. Constructivist content: The connection of this paper with constructivism is the proposal of a computational and formally described mechanism that implements important aspects of the subjective process of knowledge construction based on key ideas proposed by constructivist theories. (shrink)

Aging is associated with declines in sensorimotor function. Several studies have demonstrated that transcranial direct current stimulation, a form of non-invasive brain stimulation, can be combined with training to mitigate age-related cognitive and motor declines. However, in some cases, the application of tDCS disrupts performance and learning. Here, we applied anodal tDCS either over the left prefrontal cortex, right PFC, supplementary motor complex, the left M1, or in a sham condition while older adults practiced a Discrete Sequence Production, (...) an explicit motor sequence, task across 3 days. We hypothesized that stimulation to either the right or left PFC would enhance motor learning for older adults, based on the extensive literature showing increased prefrontal cortical activity during motor task performance in older adults. Contrary to our predictions, stimulation to the right and left PFC resulted in slowed motor learning, as evidenced by a slower reduction rate of reduction of reaction time and the number of sequence chunks across trials relative to sham in session one and session two, respectively. These findings suggest an integral role of the right PFC early in sequence learning and a role of the left PFC in chunking in older adults, and contribute to mounting evidence of the difficultly of using tDCS in an aging population. (shrink)

This study investigates the procedural learning, retention, and reactivation of temporal sensorimotor sequences in children with and without developmental coordination disorder. Twenty typically-developing children and 12 children with DCD took part in this study. The children were required to tap on a keyboard, synchronizing with auditory or visual stimuli presented as an isochronous temporal sequence, and practice non-isochronous temporal sequences to memorize them. Immediate and delayed retention of the audio-motor and visuo-motor non-isochronous sequences were tested by removing auditory (...) or visual stimuli immediately after practice and after a delay of 2 h. A reactivation test involved reintroducing the auditory and visual stimuli after the delayed recall. Data were computed via circular analyses to obtain asynchrony, the stability of synchronization and errors. Firstly, an overall deficit in synchronization with both auditory and visual isochronous stimuli was observed in DCD children compared to TD children. During practice, further improvements were found for the audio-motor non-isochronous sequence compared to the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence in both TD children and children with DCD. However, a drastic increase in errors occurred in children with DCD during immediate retention as soon as the auditory stimuli were removed. Reintroducing auditory stimuli decreased errors in the audio-motor sequence for children with DCD. Such changes were not seen for the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence, which was equally learned, retained and reactivated in DCD and TD children. All these results suggest that TD children benefit from both auditory and visual stimuli to memorize the sequence, whereas children with DCD seem to present a deficit in integrating an audio-motor sequence in their memory. The immediate effect of reactivation suggests a specific dependency on auditory information in DCD. Contrary to the audio-motor sequence, the visuo-motor sequence was both learned and retained in children with DCD. This suggests that visual stimuli could be the best information for memorizing a temporal sequence in DCD. All these results are discussed in terms of a specific audio-motor coupling deficit in DCD. (shrink)

Songbirds possess mirror neurons (MNs) activating during the perception and execution of specific features of songs. These neurons are located in high vocal center (HVC), a premotor nucleus implicated in song perception, production and learning, making worth to inquire their properties and functions in vocal recognition and imitative learning. By integrating a body of brain and behavioral data, we discuss neurophysiology, anatomical, computational properties and possible functions of songbird MNs. -/- We state that the neurophysiological properties of songbird (...) MNs depends on sensorimotor regions that are outside the auditory neural system. Interestingly, songbirds MNs can be the result of the specific type of song representation possessed by some songbird species. At the functional level, we discuss whether songbird MNs are involved in others' song recognition, by dissecting the function of recognition in various different but possible overlapping processes: action-oriented perception, discriminative-oriented perception and identification of the signaler. We conclude that songbird MNs may be involved in recognizing other singer's vocalizations, while their role in imitative learning still require to solve how auditory feedback are used to correct own vocal performance to match the tutor song. Finally, we compare songbird and human mirror responses, hypothesizing a case of convergent evolution, and proposing new experimental directions. (shrink)

Alcohol use disorder is a burden to society creating social and health problems. Detection of AUD and its effects on the brain are difficult to assess. This problem is enhanced by the comorbid use of other substances such as nicotine that has been present in previous studies. Recent machine learning algorithms have raised the attention of researchers as a useful tool in studying and detecting AUD. This work uses AUD and controls samples free of any other substance use to (...) assess the performance of a set of commonly used machine learning classifiers detecting AUD from resting state functional network connectivity derived from independent component analysis. The cohort used included 51 alcohol dependent subjects and 51 control subjects. Despite alcohol, none of the 102 subjects reported use of nicotine, cannabis or any other dependence or habit formation substance. Classification features consisted of whole brain rsFNC estimates undergoing a feature selection process using a random forest approach. Features were then fed to 10 different machine learning classifiers to be evaluated based on their classification performance. A neural network classifier showed the highest performance with an area under the curve of 0.79. Other good performers with similar AUC scores were logistic regression, nearest neighbor, and support vector machine classifiers. The worst results were obtained with Gaussian process and quadratic discriminant analysis. The feature selection outcome pointed to functional connections between visual, sensorimotor, executive control, reward, and salience networks as the most relevant for classification. We conclude that AUD can be identified using machine learning classifiers in the absence of nicotine comorbidity. (shrink)

Recurrent, unvarying, and seemingly purposeless patterns of action and cognition are part of normal development, but also feature prominently in several neuropsychiatric conditions. Repetitive stereotyped behaviors can be viewed as exaggerated forms of learned habits and frequently correlate with alterations in motor, limbic, and associative basal ganglia circuits. However, it is still unclear how altered basal ganglia feedback signals actually relate to the phenomenological variability of RSBs. Why do behaviorally overlapping phenomena sometimes require different treatment approaches−for example, sensory shielding strategies (...) versus exposure therapy for autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder, respectively? Certain clues may be found in recent models of basal ganglia function that extend well beyond action selection and motivational control, and have implications for sensorimotor integration, prediction, learning under uncertainty, as well as aesthetic learning. In this paper, we systematically compare three exemplary conditions with basal ganglia involvement, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Parkinson’s disease, and autism spectrum conditions, to gain a new understanding of RSBs. We integrate clinical observations and neuroanatomical and neurophysiological alterations with accounts employing the predictive processing framework. Based on this review, we suggest that basal ganglia feedback plays a central role in preconditioning cortical networks to anticipate self-generated, movement-related perception. In this way, basal ganglia feedback appears ideally situated to adjust the salience of sensory signals through precision weighting of new sensory information, relative to the precision of predictions based on prior generated models. Accordingly, behavioral policies may preferentially rely on new data versus existing knowledge, in a spectrum spanning between novelty and stability. RSBs may then represent compensatory or reactive responses, respectively, at the opposite ends of this spectrum. This view places an important role of aesthetic learning on basal ganglia feedback, may account for observed changes in creativity and aesthetic experience in basal ganglia disorders, is empirically testable, and may inform creative art therapies in conditions characterized by stereotyped behaviors. (shrink)

[full article, abstract in English; abstract in Lithuanian] Many countries are adopting computing in schools, for pupils from 5 years of age. Educational philosophies that such curricula might be based on are not clear in curriculum documentation. Many Western countries’ curricula are based on developmental concepts of cognitive constructivism, with activities progressing through sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. Social constructivism and constructionism add new dimensions to this learning framework, both fundamentally important for developing computing practices. (...) We review selected learning theories, and investigate features that should underpin computing curricula if practices and outcomes are to develop computing practitioner competencies of a software developer. (shrink)