In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Physiology

In the

School of Biological Sciences

Kristel Yu Tiamco Bayani Topping

Will defend her dissertation

The role of observation on the spatiotemporal organization of neurobehavioral patterns in goal-directed actions

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

10:00 AM

https://bluejeans.com/562370284/8584

 Thesis Advisor:

Lewis A. Wheaton, Ph.D.

School of Biological Sciences

Georgia Institute of Technology

Committee Members:

Boris I. Prilutsky, Ph.D.

School of Biological Sciences

Georgia Institute of Technology

Minuro Shinohara, Ph.D.

School of Biological Sciences

Georgia Institute of Technology

Audrey Duarte, Ph.D.

School of Psychology

Georgia Institute of Technology

Federico Rossano, Ph.D.

Division of Social Science, Cognitive Science

University of California San Diego

ABSTRACT:

The performance of complex, goal-directed actions is an essential skill that is developed and refined through continuous practice and careful observation. Tool-use is an ideal task to examine action organization and understanding and is a classical approach to understand problem solving and the cognitive underpinnings of complex action. While many studies implement simple single-step tasks, these current studies utilize end-state comfort (ESC), a multi-step task that introduces task constraints to understand action complexity and the neurobehavioral substrates that produce and organize meaningful tool-use actions. From a neural perspective, grasp selection for tool-use is mediated by the frontoparietal network, an interconnected group of brain regions responsible for the integration of sensory and motor information for motor execution as well as action understanding and comprehension during action observation. Embedded within the frontoparietal networks, brain regions are also responsible for planning, producing, and organizing eye movements, which have been linked to motor planning and execution. The purpose of the proposed studies is to evaluate the role of observation on the spatiotemporal organization of gaze and neural patterns of complex grasp postures.  In Aim 1 and 2, eye tracking was used to examine the spatiotemporal patterns of gaze along goal- and grasp-related areas of interests (AOIs) in the visual scene. In Aim 3, electroencephalography (EEG) was utilized to measure the spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity in the frontoparietal networks during planning and reach-to-grasp movement phases. Overall, findings from these studies reveal modulation of gaze patterns during observation based on ESC task constraints and the mechanism of visuomotor priming during observation. The integration of gaze and neural mechanisms, as well the inclusion of tool-use tasks requiring ESC grasp postures, provides a rich framework that allows us to understand the mechanisms of action perception and organization.