Social & Motor Cognition Laboratory

Noam Karsh, PhD - Head of the Laboratory

Mail: [email protected] 

תמונה

A perceptual effect that is temporally contiguous to an action holds essential information for the confirmation of sensorimotor predictions. Emerging accounts suggest that confirming sensorimotor predictions is rewarding in and of itself, further promoting the development of motor representations and reinforcing the selection of the relevant motor program. We follow these theoretical and empirical indications to directly investigate the promoting impact of confirmation of sensorimotor predictions on motor performance. [Adapted from: Karsh, N., Ahmad, Z., Freud, E., & Hadad, B. S. (2021). Agency evaluation in motor cognition: Action’s control-effectiveness feedback and its environmental context enhance motor performance.]
 

How does information about one’s control over the environment (e.g., having an own-action effect) influence motivation? The control-based response selection framework was proposed to predict and explain such findings. Its key tenant is that control relevant information modulates both the frequency and speed of responses by determining whether a perceptual event is an outcome of one’s actions or not. To test this framework empirically, the current study examines whether and how temporal and spatial contiguity/predictability—previously established as being important for one’s sense of agency—modulate motivation from control. [adapted from: Karsh, N., Eitam, B., Mark, I., & Higgins, E. T. (2016). Bootstrapping agency: How control-relevant information affects motivation.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(10), 1333–1350. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000212]

Alternations in sensory perception and motor impairments are primary features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that may be their first sign of atypical development and predict social and non-social challenges. However, their link is poorly understood. One way sensory perception integrates with motor processes is through evaluating motor-based sensory predictions, which play a vital role in motor control. Previous studies indicate alternations in such evaluation in ASD. The present study focused on reinforcement from sensorimotor predictability (RSP), which provides a theoretical and empirical framework to study the impact of evaluating sensorimotor predictions on motor performance.
 

Risk-taking is traditionally explained through outcome-value expectancy models. Recently, however, it has been demonstrated that immediate versus delayed feedback increases risk-taking independently of expected value. The current work takes a novel approach to investigate behavioral motivation in different risk-taking contexts, building on recent progress in identifying the reinforcing impact of action-effectiveness. [Adapted from: Karsh, N., Haklay, I., Raijman, N., Lampel, A., & Custers, R. (2021). Control alters risk-taking: The motivating impact of action-effectiveness in different risk contexts. Motivation Science, 7(4), 475–486. https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000244]
 

Altered sensory-perception and poor motor functioning are primary features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that may provide the first sign of atypical development. However, their mechanistic link is poorly understood. The proposed research integrates current advances in understanding perceptual processing in ASD to understand the close mechanistic link between perceptual specialization and motor control in typically developed (TD) children and adults and in ASD.

Response inhibition is often explained as an act of cognitive control or executive functions. Cognitive control models of response inhibition often assume a competing interplay between executing and inhibiting a motor response. Much less attention was given to the impact of sensorimotor control on response-inhibition. In the current project we investigate whether and how sensorimotor control modulates the efficiency of cognitive control functions.
 

Karsh, N., Ahmad, Z., Freud, E., & Hadad, B. (unpublished manuscript). An effect that counts: Confirmation of sensorimotor prediction improves motor performance.

Hemed, E., Karsh, N., Mark-Tavger, I., & Eitam, B. (2022). Motivation (s) from control: response-effect contingency and confirmation of sensorimotor predictions reinforce different levels of selection. Experimental Brain Research, 240(5), 1471-1497.

Karsh, N., Haklay, I., Raijman, N., Lampel, A., & Custers, R. (2021). Control alters risk-taking: The motivating impact of action-effectiveness in different risk contexts. Motivation Science, 7(4), 475–486.

Karsh, N., Hemed, E., Nafcha, O., Elkayam, S. B., Custers, R., & Eitam, B. (2020). The differential impact of a response’s effectiveness and its monetary value on response-selection. Scientific reports, 10(1), 1-12.