Traditional approaches to human information processing tend to deal with perception and action planning in isolation, so that an adequate account of the perception-action interface is still missing. On the perceptual side, the dominant cognitive view largely underestimates, and thus fails to account for, the impact of action-related processes on both the processing of perceptual information and on perceptual learning. On the action side, most approaches conceive of action planning as a mere continuation of stimulus processing, thus failing to account (...) for the goal-directedness of even the simplest reaction in an experimental task. We propose a new framework for a more adequate theoretical treatment of perception and action planning, in which perceptual contents and action plans are coded in a common representational medium by feature codes with distal reference. Perceived events (perceptions) and to-be-produced events (actions) are equally represented by integrated, task-tuned networks of feature codes – cognitive structures we call event codes. We give an overview of evidence from a wide variety of empirical domains, such as spatial stimulus-response compatibility, sensorimotor synchronization, and ideomotor action, showing that our main assumptions are well supported by the data. Key Words: action planning; binding; common coding; event coding; feature integration; perception; perception-action interface. (shrink)

In this original and provocative account of the evolutionary origins of human communication, Michael Tomasello connects the fundamentally cooperative structure of human communication (initially discovered by Paul Grice) to the especially ...

The Visual Brain in Action by Milner and Goodale provides a new conceptual account of how the brain processes visual information. Milner and Goodale make two major points: The dorsal stream processes visual information for motor purposes; Action and perception are two completely separate domains, the latter being an exclusive property of the ventral stream. In the first part of this review we will summarize some recent neurophysiological data shedding new light on the "pragmatic" role of the visual information processed (...) in the dorsal stream, and thus corroborating the theoretical views of Milner and Goodale. In the second part we will discuss some recent neurophysiological, neuropsychological and brain imaging studies suggesting that the dichotomy proposed by Milner and Goodale between action and perception is probably too rigid. (shrink)