Probing links between action perception and action production in Parkinson's disease using Fitts' law

Takeshi Sakurada, Guenther Knoblich, Natalie Sebanz, Shin ichi Muramatsu, Masahiro Hirai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Information on how the subcortical brain encodes information required to execute actions or to evaluate others’ actions remains scanty. To clarify this link, Fitts'-law tasks for perception and execution were tested in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). For the perception task, participants were shown apparent motion displays of a person moving their arm between two identical targets and reported whether they judged that the person could realistically move at the perceived speed without missing the targets. For the motor task, participants were required to touch the two targets as quickly and accurately as possible, similarly to the person observed in the perception task. In both tasks, the PD group exhibited, or imputed to others, significantly slower performances than those of the control group. However, in both groups, the relationships of perception and execution with task difficulty were exactly those predicted by Fitts’ law. This suggests that despite dysfunction of the subcortical region, motor simulation abilities reflected mechanisms of compensation in the PD group. Moreover, we found that patients with PD had difficulty in switching their strategy for estimating others’ actions when asked to do so.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)201-208
Number of pages8
JournalNeuropsychologia
Volume111
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2018

Keywords

  • Fitts'-law
  • Parkinson's disease
  • Perception and action
  • Self-other distinction
  • Subcortical region

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Probing links between action perception and action production in Parkinson's disease using Fitts' law'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this