Citation

Desantis A, Roussel C, Waszak F. Cognition 2014; 132(3): 243-250.

Affiliation

Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 75006 Paris, France; CNRS, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, UMR 8242, 75006 Paris, France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.cognition.2014.04.010

PMID

24853627

Abstract

An essential aspect of voluntary action control is the ability to predict the perceptual effects of our actions. Although the influence of action-effect prediction on humans' behavior and perception is unequivocal, it remains unclear when action-effect prediction is generated by the brain. The present study investigates the dynamics of action effect anticipation by tracing the time course of its perceptual consequences. Participants completed an acquisition phase during which specific actions (left and right key-presses) were associated with specific visual effects (upward and downward dots motion). In the test phase they performed a 2 AFC identification task in which they were required to indicate whether the dots moved upward or downward. To isolate any effects of action-effect prediction on perception, participants were presented with congruent and incongruent dot motion in which the association participants learned in the previous acquisition phase was respected and violated, respectively. Crucially, to assess the temporal dynamics of action prediction, congruent and incongruent stimuli were presented at different intervals before or after action execution. We observed higher sensitivity (d') to motion discrimination in congruent vs. incongruent trials only when stimuli were presented from about 220ms before the action to 280ms after the action. The temporal dynamics of our effect suggest that action-effect prediction modulates perception at later stages of motor preparation.

Language: en