Today@Dal

How TwO Coordinate Actions and Learn from Each Other
The vast majority of research in perception, cognition, and action has focussed on the processes that lead to an individual acting alone to achieve personal action goals. Human experience, however, is clearly not limited to situations in which individuals work alone. Humans are social beings who observe, interpret, and use the actions of other people to achieve a variety of individual and group goals. In this talk, Dr. Welsh will review separate lines of work that converge on the theme of action in social contexts. The results of these investigations indicate that action in social contexts is facilitated by a series of inter-related processes that include: action imagination, prediction, and perception; the understanding of other people's bodies; and the coding of both lower-level kinematics and the higher level goals of the actions (such as effects and intention). Implications for motor learning through observation and imagery will also be discussed.

Dr. Tim Welsh is a Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education at the University of Toronto. He also holds a graduate cross appointment in the Department of Psychology and is the Co-ordinator of the Centre for Motor Control. The main objective of his research is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the cognitive and neural mechanisms that shape the goal-directed actions of people from average and special populations such as autism, Down syndrome, and dystonia. His uses both behavioural and neurophysiological approaches to explore three main areas of investigation:

the interactions between attention and action;
perception-action coupling; and,
action in social contexts.

Monday, April 24th, 2-3PM.
Room 264, CHEB.

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