Giorgio Papitto | Retrieving actions: an fMRI study on the retrieval of action representations

Actions rely on predictive processes mapping together sensory inputs and statistical regularities of action-goal relationships. These mappings take the form of representations that need to be retrieved in the execution phase, even though little is known concerning the brain areas supporting this process. Therefore, we developed an fMRI experiment in which four types of stimuli are going to be presented, each one coding a specific finger-tapping sequence or one of three classes of sequences: sequences sharing (i) motor features; (ii) an abstract rule; (iii) no information. Participants will be provided first with a class or sequence cue (contextual signal) and then with a sequence cue (execution signal), i.e., the sequence to perform with the right hand on a button-box. We hypothesize that the posterior-most subregion within left BA44 is responsible for accessing mental representations of actions and that its activity reflects the specificity of information carried by a stimulus.