In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Physiology

In the

School of Biological Sciences

Layla Abdullatif

Will defend her dissertation

The Influence of Action Observation on Sensorimotor Integration During Motor Performance

31ST, JULY, 2025

11:30AM

https://gatech.zoom.us/j/92509007056

Thesis Advisor:

Lewis Wheaton, Ph.D.

School of Biological Sciences

Georgia Institute of Technology

Committee Members:

Dr. Young-Hui Chang, Ph.D.

School of Biological Sciences

Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Mindy Millard-Stafford, Ph.D.

School of Biological Sciences

Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Boris Prilutsky, Ph.D.

School of Biological Sciences

Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Veronica Rowe Ph.D OTR/L

Department of Occupational Therapy

Georgia State University

ABSTRACT:

Skill acquisition is a fundamental part of life for nearly every population, from babies learning to walk to persons in motor rehabilitation. It either entails the development of a new skill or the refinement of an existing one that was previously acquired.  One way a skill can be learned is by watching or observing another individual perform the task. Action observation for motor learning involves viewing a motor task to replicate the action. There is evidence that action observation training, when combined with physical practice, is more effective than physical practice alone and presents unique opportunities to facilitate skill acquisition. Research on action observation has shown that action observation training benefits not only performance production variables, such as movement coordination patterns related to movement speed and interlimb relative coordination, but also performance outcome variables related to motor learning, including improved task performance. Action observation has been shown to improve the execution of movements due to the shared neural networks for observation and execution. While neural representations from action observation have been studied, the role of task difficulty on physiological outcomes, such as gaze behavior, kinematics, and perceived workload, remains unclear.

The goal of the following studies is to understand the role of an action observation intervention on motor and visual systems under different levels of task difficulty.