Project Details
Projekt
Amodal and modal representations in planning and control of human action
Subject Area
General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
Term
since 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 381713393
This project addresses two central questions that arose from the first funding period and which are relevant for understanding the representations underlying planning and control of motor actions: First, we focus on the planning phase of actions and investigate generalization in response-effect learning and response-effect compatibility. This is relevant to understand the degree to which action-planning is based on abstract, amodal representations or on concrete, modal representations and will also have implications for the Theory of Event Coding. Second, we focus on the control phase of actions and investigate two tasks that have been used extensively with healthy humans and neuropsychological patients: manual size estimation and grasping. We will investigate whether these tasks are indicative of two distinct representations (abstract, amodal vs. concrete, modal, respectively). To do so, we will focus on Weber's law and Garner interference as paradigmatic test cases. Results will have implications for the Perception-Action Model. In sum, we will clarify to which degree there is evidence for distinct representations guiding planning and control of actions and to which degree those representations can be mapped to the research unit's overarching modal vs. amodal framework.
DFG Programme
Research Units
