How we do what we want: A neuro-cognitive perspective on human action planning (2003)
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@MISC{Hommel03howwe,
author = {Bernhard Hommel},
title = {How we do what we want: A neuro-cognitive perspective on human action planning},
year = {2003}
}
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Abstract
Humans perform actions to reach particular goals, that is, to intentionally create or modify personally relevant events---we move our eyes to learn more about a novel event, reach for a cup to quench our thirst, and move our lips to share our thoughts with someone else. Accordingly, even primitive actions must involve some kind of planning, some sort of anticipatory control. Indeed, there are at least three defining features that the simplest behavioral acts share with more complex ones. First, all of them are planned in terms of anticipated goal events. In particular, the first step of action planning consists in specifying the features the action is intended to possess; this is achieved by activating the appropriate action-effect codes, i.e., sensory-motor assemblies controlling the production of those features. Action-effect codes emerge through the perception of movement-effect contingencies, and they are acquired from the first months in life on. Besides action planning they are involved in the perception of both one's own actions and actions of others. Second, selected features of an intended action need to be integrated into a coherent, durable action plan, which is achieved by temporarily "binding" distributed feature codes. Third, planning an action turns the cognitive system into a kind of reflex machinery, which facilitates the proper execution of the plan under appropriate circumstances. This involves the implementation of automatic stimulus-response associations and the increase of the salience of action-related situational information, thereby delegating action control to the environment.
