Daniel Bub |
Ph.D.
1982 (Rochester) joined Department in 1994 |
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| Cognitive
Neuropsychology
Warren, C., Masson, M., & Bub, D. (2008). Kicking calculators: Contribution of embodied representations to sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, In Press Bub, D., Masson, M.E.J., & Cree, G.S. (2008) Evocation of functional and volumetric gestural knowledge by object and words. Cognition, 106, 27-58. Bub, D. (2008) Reflections on language evolution and the brain. Cortex, 44, 206-217.
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Motor
representations form part of our knowledge of everyday objects like
calculators and spray-cans. There is increasing evidence that such
representations, determining our ability to hold and use manipulable
objects, are invoked dynamically during language and perceptual
tasks. For example, spatial attention is modulated in unexpected
ways when observers view graspable objects. The computational role
played by higher level motor systems in cognition is therefore of
fundamental interest, as is the nature of the processes that determine
a particular hand representation in a given task context. Any manipulable
object affords a range of familiar actions. For example, we learn
to pick up or move a pocket calculator with an inverted open grasp,
but we learn to use it according to its conventional function by
poking the keys with an extended forefinger. I have developed a
novel experimental method to assess the evocation of specific hand
action representations to words, objects or sentences in real time.
This approach requires subjects to carry out speeded reach and grasp
actions on an eight-element response apparatus. Each element affords
a unique action and subjects learn to produce a given manual action
in response to a visual cue. We then measure the influence of an
object, word or sentence (a priming event) on reach and grasp performance,
time-locked to the visual cue, yielding evidence on the nature and
time course of the motor representations evoked by the priming event.
This research provides valuable convergent methods that will clarify
evidence available from functional imaging research and from neuropsychology.
