The relation between geometry and time in mental actions.

Mental imagery is a cognitive tool that helps humans take decisions by simulating past and future events. The hypothesis has been advanced that there is a functional equivalence between actual and mental movements. Yet, we do not know whether there are any limitations to its validity even in terms o...

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Autores principales:	Charalambos Papaxanthis, Christos Paizis, Olivier White, Thierry Pozzo, Natale Stucchi
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2012
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/61c9556724474283a0a821512a4651db
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:61c9556724474283a0a821512a4651db2021-11-18T08:06:32ZThe relation between geometry and time in mental actions.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0051191https://doaj.org/article/61c9556724474283a0a821512a4651db2012-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/23226487/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Mental imagery is a cognitive tool that helps humans take decisions by simulating past and future events. The hypothesis has been advanced that there is a functional equivalence between actual and mental movements. Yet, we do not know whether there are any limitations to its validity even in terms of some fundamental features of actual movements, such as the relationship between space and time. Although it is impossible to directly measure the spatiotemporal features of mental actions, an indirect investigation can be conducted by taking advantage of the constraints existing in planar drawing movements and described by the two-thirds power law (2/3PL). This kinematic law describes one of the most impressive regularities observed in biological movements: movement speed decreases when curvature increases. Here, we compared the duration of identical actual and mental arm movements by changing the constraints imposed by the 2/3PL. In the first two experiments, the length of the trajectory remained constant, while its curvature (Experiment 1) or its number of inflexions (Experiment 2) was manipulated. The results showed that curvature, but not the number of inflexions, proportionally and similarly affected actual and mental movement duration, as expected from the 2/3PL. Two other control experiments confirmed that the results of Experiment 1 were not attributable to eye movements (Experiment 3) or to the perceived length of the displayed trajectory (Experiment 4). Altogether, our findings suggest that mental movement simulation is tuned to the kinematic laws characterizing actions and that kinematics of actual and mental movements is completely specified by the representation of their geometry.Charalambos PapaxanthisChristos PaizisOlivier WhiteThierry PozzoNatale StucchiPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 7, Iss 11, p e51191 (2012)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Charalambos Papaxanthis Christos Paizis Olivier White Thierry Pozzo Natale Stucchi The relation between geometry and time in mental actions.
description	Mental imagery is a cognitive tool that helps humans take decisions by simulating past and future events. The hypothesis has been advanced that there is a functional equivalence between actual and mental movements. Yet, we do not know whether there are any limitations to its validity even in terms of some fundamental features of actual movements, such as the relationship between space and time. Although it is impossible to directly measure the spatiotemporal features of mental actions, an indirect investigation can be conducted by taking advantage of the constraints existing in planar drawing movements and described by the two-thirds power law (2/3PL). This kinematic law describes one of the most impressive regularities observed in biological movements: movement speed decreases when curvature increases. Here, we compared the duration of identical actual and mental arm movements by changing the constraints imposed by the 2/3PL. In the first two experiments, the length of the trajectory remained constant, while its curvature (Experiment 1) or its number of inflexions (Experiment 2) was manipulated. The results showed that curvature, but not the number of inflexions, proportionally and similarly affected actual and mental movement duration, as expected from the 2/3PL. Two other control experiments confirmed that the results of Experiment 1 were not attributable to eye movements (Experiment 3) or to the perceived length of the displayed trajectory (Experiment 4). Altogether, our findings suggest that mental movement simulation is tuned to the kinematic laws characterizing actions and that kinematics of actual and mental movements is completely specified by the representation of their geometry.
format	article
author	Charalambos Papaxanthis Christos Paizis Olivier White Thierry Pozzo Natale Stucchi
author_facet	Charalambos Papaxanthis Christos Paizis Olivier White Thierry Pozzo Natale Stucchi
author_sort	Charalambos Papaxanthis
title	The relation between geometry and time in mental actions.
title_short	The relation between geometry and time in mental actions.
title_full	The relation between geometry and time in mental actions.
title_fullStr	The relation between geometry and time in mental actions.
title_full_unstemmed	The relation between geometry and time in mental actions.
title_sort	relation between geometry and time in mental actions.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2012
url	https://doaj.org/article/61c9556724474283a0a821512a4651db
work_keys_str_mv	AT charalambospapaxanthis therelationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions AT christospaizis therelationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions AT olivierwhite therelationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions AT thierrypozzo therelationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions AT natalestucchi therelationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions AT charalambospapaxanthis relationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions AT christospaizis relationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions AT olivierwhite relationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions AT thierrypozzo relationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions AT natalestucchi relationbetweengeometryandtimeinmentalactions
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The relation between geometry and time in mental actions.

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