Article
Behavioral Sciences
Alessia Tessari, Paola Mengotti, Luca Faccioli, Giovanni Tuozzi, Silvia Boscarato, Mariangela Taricco, Raffaella I. Rumiati
Summary: The study aimed to investigate the differences in imitation performance between finger and hand/arm gestures among left-brain damaged patients, with or without apraxia, as well as healthy controls. Results showed that left-brain damaged patients imitated meaningless finger movements worse than hand/arm movements, while apraxic patients had difficulties imitating finger movements compared to hand/arm movements. Additionally, apraxic patients' imitation performance was equally affected regardless of the action meaning, unlike non-apraxic patients who performed better on meaningful gestures.
Article
Neurosciences
Effrosyni Ntemou, Ann-Katrin Ohlerth, Sebastian Ille, Sandro M. Krieg, Roelien Bastiaanse, Adria Rofes
Summary: This study used navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (nTMS) and action naming tasks with finite verbs to investigate the cortical underpinnings of verb transitivity. The results revealed more nTMS-positive points in the left hemisphere, particularly in the left parietal lobe, when producing transitive verbs, which were associated with lexico-semantic errors.
FRONTIERS IN HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Mathieu Lesourd, Amandine E. Rey
Summary: The study found that children showed similar patterns to adults in imitating meaningful and meaningless gestures, but made more errors, and the imitation of the two types of gestures was influenced by different factors.
JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Computer Science, Cybernetics
Jinghua Huang, Hongbo Zhang, Lujin Mao, Dongliang Zhang, Jianfeng Li, Tiancheng Ji, Runze Han
Summary: This study investigated the effects of different tablet configurations and touchscreen gestures on electromyography, performance, and subjective assessment. The results showed that the Stand-Hand configuration reduced shoulder muscle loads, while the Sit-Table configuration increased them. Certain gestures also led to increased muscle loads in specific areas. Additionally, long-distance movements took more time, and dragging inwards was found to be more efficient than dragging outwards.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
(2022)
Review
Clinical Neurology
Francois Osiurak, Emanuelle Reynaud, Josselin Baumard, Yves Rossetti, Angela Bartolo, Mathieu Lesourd
Summary: Pantomime plays a crucial role in assessing tool-use disorders in clinical neuropsychology, with key brain regions such as the left inferior parietal lobe, intraparietal sulcus, and left angular gyrus being involved. Additionally, pantomime performance is strongly correlated with the severity of semantic deficits.
BRAIN COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Samara Danel, Auguste M. P. Bayern, Francois Osiurak
Summary: This study tested the tool-using ability of great white pelicans in the wild and found that most individuals failed to use tools successfully, with only a few learning to use tools under training conditions, indicating limited cognitive flexibility in this species.
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Giovanni Federico, Francois Osiurak, Maria Antonella Brandimonte, Marco Salvatore, Carlo Cavaliere
Summary: This study investigated the visual encoding modalities of participants in a free-observation task using eye-tracking. The results showed that participants allocated their visual-spatial attention differently to the manipulation and functional areas of objects over time. The repetition of stimuli significantly decreased attention to the functional areas, while attention to the manipulation areas remained stable.
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH-PSYCHOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNG
(2023)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Francois Osiurak, Nicolas Claidiere, Giovanni Federico
Summary: The prevailing belief in cumulative technological culture is that high-fidelity transmission relies on the ability to accurately copy tool-use actions without understanding them. This article challenges the distinction between copying and reasoning by examining the cognitive science literature on tool use. Evidence suggests that reproducing others' tool-use actions actually requires causal understanding, thus casting doubt on the cognitive reality of the so-called copying ability. The authors suggest that considering causal understanding as a key driver of cumulative technological culture could lead to new insights.
TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Mathieu Lesourd, Emanuelle Reynaud, Jordan Navarro, Vivien Gaujoux, Alexandrine Faye-Vedrines, Boris Alexandre, Josselin Baumard, Giovanni Federico, Franck Lamberton, Danielle Ibarrola, Yves Rossetti, Francois Osiurak
Summary: Our ability to interact with familiar objects is supported by conceptual tool knowledge. The ventro-dorsal and ventral pathways support action tool and semantic tool knowledge. However, recent studies have started to question this functional segregation. By conducting an fMRI study, we found that the lateral occipitotemporal cortex in the ventral pathway is more sensitive to manipulation and function judgment tasks than association judgment tasks. In addition, our functional connectivity analysis revealed distinct coupling patterns between different brain regions involved in tool processing.
Article
Neurosciences
Mathieu Lesourd, Alia Afyouni, Franziska Geringswald, Fabien Cignetti, Lisa Raoul, Julien Sein, Bruno Nazarian, Jean-Luc Anton, Marie-Helene Grosbras
Summary: The human action observation network (AON) is engaged when observing other's actions, and it is not known to what extent it is sensitive to different action features during development. In this study, both adolescents and adults were scanned using fMRI while watching videos of actions varying in sociality and transitivity. The results showed that the AON responded similarly in both groups, but adolescents had lower decoding accuracies for sociality and transitivity in certain brain regions. These findings suggest that the adolescent AON is not as robust in representing the social dimension of others' actions as in adults.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Letter
Behavioral Sciences
Francois Osiurak, Giovanni Federico, Nicolas Claidiere
TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Francois Osiurak, Ludovic Delporte, Patrice Revol, Livia Melgar, Aurele Robert de Beauchamp, Francois Quesque, Yves Rossetti
Summary: Through kinematic analyses, researchers found that the exaggeration of amplitude during pantomime is related to social cognitive processes, but not necessary. This suggests that the communicative function of pantomime is more important than cognitive processes.
BRAIN AND COGNITION
(2023)
Editorial Material
Biology
Francois Osiurak, Nicolas Claidiere, Giovanni Federico
PHYSICS OF LIFE REVIEWS
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Josselin Baumard, Mathieu Lesourd, Chrystelle Remigereau, Christophe Jarry, Samuel Lebaz, Frederique Etcharry-Bouyx, Valerie Chauvire, Francois Osiurak, Didier Le Gall
Summary: Objective Apraxia is the inability to perform voluntary, skilled movements following brain lesions, in the absence of sensory integration deficits. This study aimed to examine the associations and dissociations between apraxia and sensory integration in patients with neurodegenerative diseases (ND). The results showed a significant association between apraxia and sensory integration deficits, and controlling for sensory integration decreased the frequency of apraxia in some clinical subgroups. Clinicians and researchers should consider evaluating sensory integration measures in addition to assessing apraxia.
ARCHIVES OF CLINICAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Vivien Gaujoux, Emanuelle Reynaud, Richard Palluel-Germain, Guillaume T. Vallet, Jordan Navarro, Francois Osiurak
Summary: Media multitasking raises questions about the general tendency and cognitive impact. Contrary to assumptions, our study found that the amount of media multitasking does not correlate with task switching frequency, indicating situational factors play a larger role. Interestingly, higher media consumption was associated with better performance on non-digital tasks. This study emphasizes the importance of assessing predictors of organization when facing multiple tasks.
ANNEE PSYCHOLOGIQUE
(2023)
Article
Biology
Giovanni Federico, Francois Osiurak, Giuseppina Ciccarelli, Ciro Rosario Ilardi, Carlo Cavaliere, Liberatore Tramontano, Vincenzo Alfano, Miriana Migliaccio, Angelica Di Cecca, Marco Salvatore, Maria Antonella Brandimonte
Summary: This fMRI study explores the neural mechanisms by which the human brain integrates semantic and mechanical knowledge to understand tool-related actions. The findings suggest that tool-related action understanding is a combination of semantic and mechanical knowledge, with the left inferior parietal and anterior temporal lobes playing important roles in physical/conceptual processing, respectively.
COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Francois Osiurak, Emanuelle Reynaud, Jordan Navarro
Summary: This study investigates the impact of intrinsic cognitive skills and metacognitive beliefs on tool use performance, as well as the nature of the relationship between tool use performance and intrinsic cognitive skills. Results show that both intrinsic cognitive skills and metacognitive beliefs contribute to higher tool use performance, and the relationship between tool use performance and intrinsic cognitive skills is linear.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Humanities, Multidisciplinary
Alexandre Bluet, Francois Osiurak, Nicolas Claidiere, Emanuelle Reynaud
Summary: Our evolving technologies have led to the expansion of our lineage on Earth and in space. However, the cognitive capacities necessary for the emergence and maintenance of cumulative technological culture (CTC) are still largely unknown. Previous research has focused on human imitation skills, particularly theory of mind (ToM), but a recent alternative view suggests that technical reasoning (TR) in understanding the physical world plays a critical role in CTC. We propose a simple model that incorporates both hypotheses and find that TR supports the transmission and modification of technology, while ToM is not necessary for the emergence of CTC.
HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Edna C. Cieslik, Markus Ullsperger, Martin Gell, Simon B. Eickhoff, Robert Langner
Summary: Previous studies on error processing have primarily focused on the posterior medial frontal cortex, but the role of other brain regions has been underestimated. This study used activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses to explore brain activity related to committing errors and responding successfully in interference tasks. It was found that the salience network and the temporoparietal junction were commonly involved in both correct and incorrect responses, indicating their general involvement in coping with situations that require increased cognitive control. Error-specific convergence was observed in the dorsal posterior cingulate cortex, posterior thalamus, and left superior frontal gyrus, while successful responding showed stronger convergence in the dorsal attention network and lateral prefrontal regions. Underrecruitment of these regions in error trials may reflect failures in activating the appropriate stimulus-response contingencies necessary for successful response execution.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2024)
