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Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues

Of the many hand gestures that we use in communication pointing is one of the most common and powerful in its role as a visual referent that directs joint attention. While numerous studies have examined the developmental trajectory of pointing production and comprehension, very little consideration...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Cooney, Sarah Maeve, O’Shea, Alanna, Brady, Nuala
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625052/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26509881
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141411
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author Cooney, Sarah Maeve
O’Shea, Alanna
Brady, Nuala
author_facet Cooney, Sarah Maeve
O’Shea, Alanna
Brady, Nuala
author_sort Cooney, Sarah Maeve
collection PubMed
description Of the many hand gestures that we use in communication pointing is one of the most common and powerful in its role as a visual referent that directs joint attention. While numerous studies have examined the developmental trajectory of pointing production and comprehension, very little consideration has been given to adult visual perception of hand pointing gestures. Across two studies, we use a visual adaptation paradigm to explore the mechanisms underlying the perception of proto-declarative hand pointing. Twenty eight participants judged whether 3D modeled hands pointed, in depth, at or to the left or right of a target (test angles of 0°, 0.75° and 1.5° left and right) before and after adapting to either hands or arrows which pointed 10° to the right or left of the target. After adaptation, the perception of the pointing direction of the test hands shifted with respect to the adapted direction, revealing separate mechanisms for coding right and leftward pointing directions. While there were subtle yet significant differences in the strength of adaptation to hands and arrows, both cues gave rise to a similar pattern of aftereffects. The considerable cross category adaptation found when arrows were used as adapting stimuli and the asymmetry in aftereffects to left and right hands suggests that the adaptation aftereffects are likely driven by simple orientation cues, inherent in the morphological structure of the hand, and not dependent on the biological status of the hand pointing cue. This finding provides evidence in support of a common neural mechanism that processes these directional social cues, a mechanism that may be blind to the biological status of the stimulus category.
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spelling pubmed-46250522015-11-06 Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues Cooney, Sarah Maeve O’Shea, Alanna Brady, Nuala PLoS One Research Article Of the many hand gestures that we use in communication pointing is one of the most common and powerful in its role as a visual referent that directs joint attention. While numerous studies have examined the developmental trajectory of pointing production and comprehension, very little consideration has been given to adult visual perception of hand pointing gestures. Across two studies, we use a visual adaptation paradigm to explore the mechanisms underlying the perception of proto-declarative hand pointing. Twenty eight participants judged whether 3D modeled hands pointed, in depth, at or to the left or right of a target (test angles of 0°, 0.75° and 1.5° left and right) before and after adapting to either hands or arrows which pointed 10° to the right or left of the target. After adaptation, the perception of the pointing direction of the test hands shifted with respect to the adapted direction, revealing separate mechanisms for coding right and leftward pointing directions. While there were subtle yet significant differences in the strength of adaptation to hands and arrows, both cues gave rise to a similar pattern of aftereffects. The considerable cross category adaptation found when arrows were used as adapting stimuli and the asymmetry in aftereffects to left and right hands suggests that the adaptation aftereffects are likely driven by simple orientation cues, inherent in the morphological structure of the hand, and not dependent on the biological status of the hand pointing cue. This finding provides evidence in support of a common neural mechanism that processes these directional social cues, a mechanism that may be blind to the biological status of the stimulus category. Public Library of Science 2015-10-28 /pmc/articles/PMC4625052/ /pubmed/26509881 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141411 Text en © 2015 Cooney et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Cooney, Sarah Maeve
O’Shea, Alanna
Brady, Nuala
Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues
title Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues
title_full Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues
title_fullStr Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues
title_full_unstemmed Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues
title_short Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues
title_sort point me in the right direction: same and cross category visual aftereffects to directional cues
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625052/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26509881
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141411
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