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SUMMARY:What dancing robots might teach us about  the development of form 
 and motion  understanding in the human brain  - Dr Emily Cross\, Wales Ins
 titute for Cognitive Neuroscience\, School of Psychology\, Bangor Universi
 ty  |    Behavioural Science Institute &amp\; Donders Institute for Brain\
 , Cognition and Behaviour\, Radboud University Nijmegen\, The Netherlands
DTSTART:20151124T130000Z
DTEND:20151124T140000Z
UID:TALK61050@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Johanna M Lukate
DESCRIPTION:In our daily lives\, we gather a broad range of information ab
 out other agents by watching them move. A considerable body of research ha
 s been dedicated to understanding how the human brain makes sense of other
  agents in motion.  Findings from work carried out with human and non-huma
 n primates implicate the involvement of parietal\, premotor and occipitote
 mporal regions in automatic matching processes that link action with perce
 ption. Moreover\, the consensus view is that these brain regions are biase
 d toward familiar actions. This means that greater activity should emerge 
 when observing actions that are familiar\, executable\, and performed by a
 n agent similar to the perceiver. However\, little is known about the neur
 al correlates of action cognition in early ontogeny\, nor how form and mot
 ion cues might interact when observing familiar vs. unfamiliar actions. In
  a series of experiments\, we have addressed these questions with a popula
 tion of healthy young adults (using fMRI) and four-month-old infants (usin
 g fNIRS). Contrary to current views of sensorimotor brain regions being bi
 ased toward familiar actions\, we find evidence in both populations that t
 hese regions are flexibly engaged by novel motor patterns. Moreover\, the 
 data suggest that the brain processes engaged in motion analysis in adults
  become functionally specialised very early in development.
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of Psychology\, Downing
  Site
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