networked learning, theory & method, G.Conole

Grainne’s position paper for hotseat January 2010

Theory & Methodology in Networked Learning

Phrasing

‘changing and contested nature’

‘theory as an antidote to technical determinism’

‘understand, work with and subvert structures – organisational, discipline, career.’

Definitions

Required as a result of evolving trends with different foci of inquiry

Networked learning – a term that is inclusive of everyone and everything involved.

Methodology – describes how different philosophical positions would interpret data. Methodology aligns with different epistemological beliefs and views of the world.

Theory – structure, idea or it can be empirical ie based on measurements and observations of reality.

Diversity of theory

Touchstone

Tool

Principle

Provides a framework for example a way of understanding and predicting something.

Can have explanatory power

May consist of general assumptions, laws

Models – are ‘abstract representations that help us understand something we cannot see or experience directly ( Conole, Oliver et al, 2007) e.g. Kolb’s learning cycle. Models are often represented visually. Garrison, community of learning model.

Framework – ‘structure and/or vocabulary that supports explication’

Research traditions ( not strictly a definition) historical, cultural, political influences all collectively shape traditions. Also influenced by birth discipline and/or experience of practice.

Theoretical perspectives, dominant discourses

1. Cultural historical activity theory – key notion is mediation by artefacts
2. CoP
3. Actor Network Theory ‘ considers both people and technologies as Actants in a connected network and in particular that it is the relationship between these actants that is important.’ ‘Focuses more on the form that a network takes’ and their formation and sustaibility.

Methodological approaches

note there can be different levels of analysis micro, macro & meta

Content Analysis

Henri, 1992 identified 5 dimesnions that can be used to evaluate CMC, namaely participative, social, interactive, cognitive and metacognitive

Garrison – interaction of 3 core components, cognitive presence, teaching presence and social presence.

Gunawadena et al, 1997 – types of cognitive activity the participant engaged with, questioning, clarifying, negotiating, synthesising, etc as well as the types of argument they put forward, the resources they used and any evidence of changes in understanding.

De Laat et al – multimethod SNA + content analysis + critical event

SEE JONES article for effect of context doing the collaboration using a computer with all seated around the computer.

Ethnography

Case Studies

Action research

Evaluation – but note the relationship between evaluation & research remains contested. One way to distinguish them is to consider how the findings are used ‘ if they are interpreted by an immediate, local audience and used to support decion making, the study was probably an evaluation; if the findings are interpreted in terms of theories and are presented as a contribution to knowledge , it was probably research’

Questions

How often is the data collected a reflection of the data that is generated?

What is technology enhanced learning?

Examples

Cloud works as a case study;

Theoretical perspective was socio-cultural drawing on artefacts. At this stage ( early 2010) cloudwork research uses the following frameworks, Goffman – face work, Engestrom, expansive learning, Levy – collective intelligence.Resources

TLRP TEL associations Challenges of Interdisplinary conference in 2007 http://www.tlrp.org/tel/tel-seminars/the-challenges-of-interdisciplinary-research/

Cloud scape of interdisciplinarity

http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/1954

Special edition of JIME published in 2002 and edited by Martin Oliver

Oliver, M. (2002). Special Issue on Theory for Learning Technologies: Editorial. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2002 (9). ISSN:1365-893X

[www-jime.open.ac.uk/2002/9]

Research methods knowledge based

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/

ESRC National Cnetre for Research methods

http://www.ncrm.ac.uk

Beissel-Durrant, G., (2004) A typology for Research Methods within the social sciences. Available at

http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/115/

Conole, G., & Oliver, M., (2002)

Contemporary perspectives in e-learning research: themes, methods, and impact on practice

http://ora.open.ac.uk/12148/

Jones, C., (1999). From the sage on the stage to what exactly? Description and the place of the moderator in cooperative and collaborative learning, ALT-J, 7(2), 27-36

Yin, R., (2009) Case study research: design and methods 4^th ed., London, Sage.

Centre for interdisciplinary research

http://www.crucible.cl.cam.ac.uk

Jones - Perspectives imitation - comment on Gallese

Susan Jones (2005)

The role of mirror neurons in imitation

A commentary on V.Gallese

“Being like me: Self-other identity, mirror units and empathy

In Hurley, S & Chater, N (2005) Perspectives on Imitation: From neuroscience to social science: Vol 1 Mechanisms of imitation and imitation in animals, Cambridge, MA,US: MIT Press 205-210.

Jones’s position as regards what is NOT the function of mirror units

• Mirror units are not direct transducers of observed behaviours to executed behaviours. P207 ‘ they respond to both sensory input and motor events; they do not respond to sensory input with motor events’

• ‘the idea that mirror units link observed actions directly to stored ‘motor plans’ also seems wrong!’ Mainly because when you consider the simplest of actions the number of factors involved make each action ( eg reaching) unique not least because of variations, even very small variations, in context.’

Jones’s critique of Gallese

+

Likes Gallese’s view ‘ mirror units as sources of the experience of common experience with other people, animals or robots like ourselves’ His proposal that ‘ mirror units are part of the mechanism for the automatic, sub-personal, non-propositional recognition and understanding of others’. Also that ‘This recognition and understanding of just the nature of others’ behaviours might then feed into an understanding of the intentions and states behind these actions’ ie it might lead to empathy

(KRO mirror units as general understanding of others rather than a specific understanding of an other)

Jones sees such knowledge and understanding as a prerequisite for imitation

( KRO again

general understanding/awareness of others leads to specific ideas about the intentions etc of another which might require the process of imitation.

? – on three points for Gallese’s claim for mirror unit involvement as a transducer , by direct mapping perception to action in imitative behaviour of infants, specifically tongue protrusion behaviour. ( note his only claim for the involvement of mirror units in imitation).

1. Jones suggests that this ‘resembles the classic reflex loop rather than the mirror unit activity as observed in Gallese’s own experiments’

2. Tongue protrusion often cited as possibly imitative behaviour of young infants but this does not take place in a one to one fashion. In Meltzoff & Meltzoff experiments it was ‘wehile the model was not tongue protruding that the infant’s tongue protrusions were most numerous ie no co-concurrence ( KRO ? need co-presence for co-concurrence)

3. Jones (1996) has shown tongue protrusion behaviour to flashing light and Jones (2001) to music. Is tongue proptrusion in infants due to arousal

Jones’s proposition ( based on the positive aspects of critique of Gallese)

She sees the important property of mirror neurons that ‘ they can fire for a specific instance of a broader category of actions – but not know whether it was mine or yours . What would such cells be good for if not to blur the lines between me and you and let us each know the other to be like ourself’

Oberman et al mu rhythm ASD mirror units

Oberman, L.M., Hubbard, E.M., McCleery, J.P., Altschuler, E.L., Ramachandran, V.S., & Pineda, J.A. (2005).

EEG evidence for mirror neuron dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders

Cognitive Brain Research 24, 190-198

Review of the evidence for mirror units in humans

Can’t be studied ( KRO therefore identified and substantiated) directly in humans

P191 ‘the existence of an analogous system ( KRO to that of monkeys) in the homologous brain region ( Broca’s area, Brodmann’s area 44) has been supported by indirect population-level measures

• Ref 17 (1995)Fadiga et al using TMS ‘motor evoked potentials in response to TMS over motor cortex were enhanced when the subject observed another individual performing an action relative to when the subject detected the dimming of a light.
• Ref 39 (1995)Parsons et al used PET to map the brain areas that were active during observation of biological movement. Frontal, parietal and cerebellar regions, including the inferior premotor cortex ( Brodmann’s area 44 – Kro thought to be equivalent to F5 of monkeys) were found to be active during actual movement, imagined movement and observed movement.
• Ref 29 Iacoboni et al (1999)using FMRI found increased blood flow in Brodmann’s area 44 during both observed and performed actions. Ref 10,36 (more recent refs) seem to confirm that these areas are implicated

Also ‘Several recent studies have uncovered activations with similar properties in the parietal cortex ( 10.39) as well as superior temporal sulcus (11,40). These results suggest that the frontal mirror unit system may be one part of a broader action observation/execution network (18.38).’

Monitoring mu rhythm as an indirect method of investigating mirror units in humans

P191 claim ‘ at rest sensorimotor neurons spontaneously fire in synchrony leading to large amplitude EEG oscillations in the 8-13 frequency band. When subjects perform an action, these units fire asynchronously, thereby decreasing the power of the mu-band EEG oscillations ( 41,48). Because the motor properties of the mirror neurons are indistinguishable from those of neighbouring premotor, motor or sensorimotor neurons, mu wave suppression during self-performed actions is likely to be the a

result of activation of several neuronal systems …….During observed hand movement , however, the mirror neuron system is the only network that has been identified to be active in this area of the cortex. ( KRO assumption, speculation?)

Mu power recorded from electrodes on scalp locations C3, Cz & C4 is reduced in normal adults by self initiated movement and observed movements (5,14,26,42)

Rationale for this research

Calls on evidence that ‘human mirror neuron system has been implicated in a variety of higher-level cognitive processes …imitation, language, theory of mind and empathy (refs 54 & 46) all of which are characteristic of ASD.

P191 ‘ once another individuals actions are represented and understood in terms of one’s own actions, it is possible to predict the mental state of the observed individual, leading to theory of mind deficits’ ‘ Empathy may critically depend on one’s ability to understand the observed facial expressions in terms of one’s own motor representations’ ( KRO but first time that the paper mentions facial expression as part of imitative movement)

Research methodogy

ASDs & controls NOTE age range 6-47 did correlation against age , reported as no correlation rather than reporting individual r values ( calculated r across three conditions and three targeted electrode placements and two participant groups ie across nine values of r for each participant group). Also don’t know the distribution of ages in the two groups. All male.

4 conditions – (i) moving own hand, (ii) watching a video of a moving hand, (iii) watching a video of two bouncing balls ( non –biological motion) (iv) watching white visual noise (baseline). (KRO absence of noise and other wild features)

Counting task , number of times the movement stopped, to control for attentional aspects.

EEG

Mastoid refes. F3, Fz,F4,C3,Cz,C4,P3,Pz,P4,T5,T6,O1,& O2 using a cap. But used recordings from C3,Cz & C4 claiming that p194 ‘although data were obtained from electrodes across the scalp, mu rhythmn is defined as oscillations measured over sensorimotor cortex thus only data from C3, Cz and C4 presented’

Data collected for 170 seconds per condition at a sampling rate of 500 HZ. Recognised that recodings at C3,Cz & C4 might be affected by changes in awareness ( KRO therefore alpha) and therefore first 10 s of each block were removed to eliminate the possibility of attentional transients. Also claims that since eyes were open throughout then any alpha rhythm would be at attenuated. EOG used to monitor artefact (eye & head only) and used to remove artefact from records. Integrated power measurement in 8-13 Hz range. P193 ‘data were segmented into epochs of 2 seconds beginning at the start of the segment, FFT were performed on the epoched data (1024 points). A cosine window was used to control for artefacts resulting from data splicing’

2 measures of mu suppression

(1i) power ratio observed hand movement /baseline

(1ii) power ratio self hand movement/baseline

(2i) power ratio observed hand movement /ball movement

(2ii) power ratio self hand movement/ball movement

1 controls for individual differences

2 controls for counting

Based comparison between two groups on log ratios with less than zero indicating suppression and more than zero indicating enhancement.

Results

Based on recordings at C3, CZ, C4 p195 ‘ there was a lack of suppression in the ASD group during the observed hand movement condition suggestive of a dysfunction in the mirror neuron system’ ‘ Furthermore the lack of suppression during the observation conditions in the ASD group is contrasted with significant suppression to their own movement., which is indicative of normal functioning of other sensorimotor systems involved in self-performed actions. P194 ‘No other electrodes showed a consistent pattern of suppression in the frequency band of interest’ (KRO but why was this data not presented as it would be useful to see.)

Discussion

Was the counting task a confounding factor? ( differential effect on the ASD subjects) Didn’t have to count in the baseline condition but did in the bat and ball so that explanation seems unlikely.

Supporting evidence from other work

P195 based on ref 37 ‘ averaging MEG to the presentations of a woman performing orofacial gestures and instructed to imitate. Activations in inferior temporal lobe and primary motor cortex were weaker and had greater latency in the AS group when compared with the control group’

Authors recognise the potential for a low level explanation ‘ p196 ‘ the impaired visual processing of biological motion. This would result in reduced activation in visual areas thought to be involved in biological motion perception’

Differences could be due to inhibitory influences from other brain processes and therefore brain regions.

Further work: looking at metaphorical statements of movement egg rap the idea, reach for the stars.

Brass Heyes imitation - theoretical frameworks & neuroscience

Marcel Brass and Cecilia Heyes (2005)

Imitation: is cognitive neuroscience solving the correspondence problem?

Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9, 10, 489-495

Authors see imitation as copying body movement although at the same time claims that p489 ‘imitation provides a foundation for language acquisition, skill learning, socialization, and enculturation’

P493

More than a century of research on imitation has left us with a crucial functional problem: how are we able to transform a visual representation of an action into motor output. In the present review we have considered whether recent work in cognitive neuroscience has helped us to

solve this correspondence problem.

The correspondence problem: How does the imitator know what pattern of motor activation will make their action look like that of the model? P489 ‘ when we observe another person moving we do not see the muscle activation underlying their movement but rather the external consequences of that activation. So, how does the observer’s motor system ‘know’ which muscle activations will lead to the observed movement;’

Specialist theories – there are functional ( ? modules) and neurological mechanisms dedicated to controlling imitation.

eg of a specialist theory AIM (active intermodal matching)

P 490 ‘coding allows a visual representation of an observed action to be matched up with a pattern of motor activation that can produce the same action.’

Generalist theories – problem solved by general mechanisms of associative learning and action control. Neuroscience support – imitation is based on the automatic activation of motor representations by movement observation. ie motor representations depend on learned perceptual-motor links and are externally triggered.

eg IM (ideomotor theory) and ASL( associative sequence learning model– p490 ‘subsumes imitation under a general account of motor control and the associative sequence learning model (ASL)….. all actions are represented in the form of ‘images’ of sensory feedback….observing someone else executing an action leads to an activation of an internal motor representation in the observer because the observed action is similar to the content of the equivalent motor representation…… ASL complements IM by explaining imitation, not only of ‘transparent’ actions such as finger movements, but also ‘opaque’ actions such as facial expressions, where the observer’s image of the model is not normally similar to the sensory feedback received during performance of the same action ASL does this by postulating that each action guiding image is a compound of two action representations –one encoding visual information (what the action looks like), and the other containing somatosensory information and motor commands (what the action feels like and how it is initiated). The visual and motor components become linked through Hebbian learning. Like IM, ASL assumes that learning of this kind can occur whenever we look down and watch our own actions. However, it points out that self-observation of an opaque movement will normally give rise to a ‘nonmatching vertical association’, i.e. to a visuo-motor link that cannot support imitation because the visual component is not similar to the visual input received during observation of another person performing the same action. Performance of an opaque movement leads to the establishment of a ‘matching vertical association’, a visuo-motor link that can support imitation, only in the kinds of environment created by optical mirrors, imitative social partners and explicit training regimes.’

Evidence

Behavioral: RT of the copy of observed movements.(nb paradigm of congruent & incongruent movements, see Bird et al compatible, incompatible actions note Interference effects of this kind occur both when kinematic aspects of the movement are observed [17–19],

and when the terminal posture is presented alone 15.20)

Neuroimaging studies: participants need not be required to perform any action at all. P491 ‘Therefore, these studies provide yet clearer evidence that passive observation of action is sufficient to generate motor activation (see [21,22] for reviews). A large number of studies have now demonstrated that passive observation of action leads to activation of a set of brain regions known to be involved in movement execution [23–27] (see Box 2). Interestingly, although motor activation also occurs during observation of abstract stimuli, it seems to be strongest for the observation of human biological motion . Areas like the inferior parietal cortex seem to be strongly ‘tuned’ (innately or through learning) to biological motion, whereas frontal regions like Broca’s area seem to be concerned with more abstract aspects of the action like the goal [25,66,67]. This latter point is further supported by a recent demonstration that premotor areas involved in the processing of biological motion are also activated by sequences of abstract stimuli [68].’

P491 Imitation is typically effector-specific; to support this imaging studies suggest somatotopic organization for observed movements in motor-related areas [29–31], particularly in premotor cortex.

If we assume that special purpose mechanisms tend to be implemented in distinctive cortical areas, the failure to find ‘hot spots’ that are active during imitation ( KRO the assumption that it has to be a specific anatomical area) but not during passive movement observation is supportive of generalist solutions to the correspondence problem.

The role of learning in imitation and observation of biological motion.

ASL model, suggests that imitative performance can be either direct or linguistically mediated.

Another study relevant to learning found stronger automatic imitation effects when body movements were viewed from an ‘own person’ perspective (at the angle from which one views ones own movements) than from an ‘other person’ perspective [36]. This finding was recently confirmed with transcranial magnetic stimulation [37]. This is what one would expect if, as generalist theories suggest, imitation depends on experience of ones own actions’

‘The results of two neuroimaging studies indicate that activation of cortical areas involved in imitation and movement observation depends on learned expertise in performing the observed movements. Using an elegant experimental design, Calvo-Merino and colleagues [38] presented capoeira dancers, expert classical ballet dancers and non-dancer control participants with video-clips of closely matched capoeira and ballet movements (Figure 3).

The capoeira experts showed stronger activation in the premotor, parietal and posterior STS regions when observing capoeira movements than when observing ballet movements, and the ballet experts showed stronger activation in the same areas when observing ballet movements than when observing capoeira movements.’

P493

Problem for generalist theories : ‘If imitation depends on shared representations of perception and action, how can we distinguish between internally generated and externally triggered motor representation’ also why don’t we imitate all of the time?

Is there an inhibition process . Brass and colleagues [44,45] investigated the functional and neuronal mechanismsinvolved in inhibition of imitative response tendencies. These studies showed that the inhibition of imitative behaviour involves cortical areas which are known to be involved in distinguishing self from other, rather than response inhibition per se. These findings provide support for the view that action observation activates motor representations of the same kind that guide internally-generated action. If they did not, it would be unnecessary for inhibition of imitation to call on mechanisms that distinguish self and other [45]. Also ‘Research involving neurological patients indicates that this problem is not purely theoretical. Some patients withprefrontal lesions are echopractic; they tend to imitate observed behaviour, rather than to follow verbal or symbolic instructions [41]. Sometimes this even leads to compulsive ‘imitation behaviour’ [42,43].’

Mirror units

Mirror Units

From Brass & Heyes (2005)

P489

‘Mirror neurons in the premotor area F5 of monkeys are active both when the animal observes and when it executes a specific action (for a review see [52,53]. The discovery of these cells has had a revolutionary impact, turning perception–action interaction into a focus of intensive, interdisciplinary research worldwide. Naturally there has been a great deal of speculation about the function of mirror neurons, including proposals that they mediate, not only imitation, but also action understanding, empathy, language development [54,55], and action simulation [56]. However, at present, direct experimental evidence for the involvement of mirror neurons

in one or all these functions is relatively weak.

Progress in research on the function of mirror neurons might have been hampered by a failure to distinguish clearly between two questions: What do they do?, What are they for? Imitation might well be one of the things that mirror neurons do; under some conditions, in some species, mirror neurons could be involved in the generation of imitative behaviour. However, mirror neurons could do imitation without being for imitation; they could be involved in generating imitative behaviour without imitation being the function that favoured their evolution by natural selection. In other words, imitation and other functions of mirror neurons could be exaptations rather than adaptations(57).’ Ie generalist theories would say that mirror neurons may do imitation but that they are not for imitation. ‘the properties of mirror neurons are not innate, and the learning and action-control processes that lead to their formation evolved in response to much more general adaptive problems.’ No empirical evidence as to whether mirror units are present at birth.’

Note claims that monkeys do not imitate evidence that is supportive of generalist theories.

Bird et al UCL imitation (voluntary v automatic) Autism

Geoffrey Bird*, Jane Leighton, Clare Press and Cecilia Heyes (2007)

Department of Psychology UCL

Intact automatic imitation of human and robot actions in autism spectrum disorders

Proc. R. Soc. B, 274, 3027-3031

Abstract

The existence of a specialized imitation module in humans is hotly debated. Studies suggesting a specific imitation impairment in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) support a modular view. However, the voluntary imitation tasks used in these studies (which require socio-cognitive abilities in addition to imitation for successful performance) cannot support claims of a specific impairment. Accordingly, an automatic imitation paradigm (a ‘cleaner’ measure of imitative ability) was used to assess the imitative ability of 16 adults with ASD and 16 non-autistic matched control participants. Participants performed a prespecified hand action in response to observed hand actions performed either by a human or a robotic hand. On compatible trials the stimulus and response actions matched, while on incompatible trials the two actions did not match. Replicating previous findings, the Control group showed an automatic imitation effect: responses on compatible trials were faster than those on incompatible trials. This effect was greater when responses were made to human than to robotic actions (‘animacy bias’). The ASD group also showed an automatic imitation effect and a larger animacy bias than the Control group. We discuss these findings with reference to the literature on imitation in ASD and theories of imitation.

Keywords: imitation; autism; mirror neuron; mirror system; animacy

P3027 (Introduction)

Theories that address imitation fall into two categories: specialist and generalist theories (Brass & Heyes 2005). Specialist theories propose that imitation is mediated by a

special-purpose imitation module, whereas generalist theories suggest that it is mediated by task-general learning and motor control mechanisms. It has been known for some

time that children and adults with ASD perform poorly in a variety of imitation tasks (see Williams et al. (2004) for a review).However, it is not clear whether their weak imitative

performance is due to specific or non-specific factors. Abnormal performance in imitation tasks could be due to either impairment of the mechanisms that translate observed into executed actions (specific factors) or impairment of mechanisms that are recruited by both the imitative and the non-imitative tasks (non-specific factors).

Most of the imitation tasks used in the studies of ASD make substantial demands on non specific mechanisms because they assess intentional or ‘voluntary’ imitation. In tests of voluntary imitation, the experimenter asks the participant to copy an action that has many temporal and spatial features, and does not specify exactly which features of the action are to be reproduced. For example, Rogers et al. (2003) instructed participants simply to ‘do

this’. Determining the appropriate action dimensions for imitation, and therefore what constitutes successful performance, is accomplished through the interpretation

of subtle cues relating to the social context and the experimenter’s mental states. The ability to focus on the selected action dimensions, so that performance is not impaired by imitation of task-irrelevant action dimensions, relies on good executive function and attentional

control. Interpretation of social cues, theory of mind, executive functions and attentional control have all been shown to be impaired in autism (Russell 1997; Bird et al.

2006; Frith & Frith 2006). Therefore, they are all candidate non-specific mechanisms that could account for poor performance on voluntary imitation tasks.

Neurological evidence in support of the specific factors hypothesis has come from studies suggesting that ASD are characterized by dysfunction of the mirror system (e.g.

Dapretto et al. 2006; Williams et al. 2006). The mirror system, comprising bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and parietal cortex, active when actions are both executed and

observed, is maximally activated during imitation (Iacoboni et al. 1999). This characteristic makes it plausible that the mirror system translates observed into executed actions, and is consistent with evidence that lesions to the mirror system result in poor performance on

imitation tasks (Heilman et al. 1982). Therefore, reports of abnormal mirror system activity in individuals with ASD support the view that their difficulties in imitation tasks are due, at least in part, to specific factors.

However different studies have localized the mirror system deficit in ASD to different neurological areas.

P3028 (Discussion)

The present study assessed imitation in high-functioning adults with ASD using an automatic imitation procedure. We chose an automatic, rather than a voluntary, imitation

test in order to minimize the demands that it would make on non-specific mechanisms. In tests of automatic imitation, participants are not asked, and do not intend,

to imitate modelled movements. Instead, they are required merely to observe actions, either passively or with a simple movement task, while the experimenter measures involuntary

muscular responses (passive observation tasks) or involuntary differences in speed to execute prespecified actions (simple movement tasks). As far as we are aware, only one previous study has tried to investigate automatic imitation in ASD. McIntosh et al.

(2006) used electromyography (EMG) to measure muscular activity in the face while participants were presented with emotional facial expressions. Compared with controls, individuals with ASD showed less expression-compatible muscular activation. However,

this study did not distinguish automatic imitation from emotional contagion. It is not clear whether, in the controls, observation of a smiling face promoted smiling directly, or by inducing positive affect. The results are also difficult to interpret because face stimuli were presented, and there is a growing body of evidence that gaze patterns to faces are abnormal in autism (Klin et al. 2002). Specifically, individuals with ASD spend less time looking

at the eye region of the face, which has been shown to be crucial in emotion recognition (Spezio et al. 2007). To overcome these problems, we used affectively neutral hand movements in our automatic imitation task.

The present study assessed imitation in high-functioning adults with ASD using an automatic imitation procedure. We chose an automatic, rather than a voluntary, imitation test in order to minimize the demands that it would make on non-specific mechanisms. In tests of automatic

imitation, participants are not asked, and do not intend, to imitate modelled movements. Instead, they are required merely to observe actions, either passively or with a simple

movement task, while the experimenter measures involuntary muscular responses (passive observation tasks) or involuntary differences in speed to execute prespecified

actions (simple movement tasks). As far as we are aware, only one previous study has tried

to investigate automatic imitation in ASD. McIntosh et al. (2006) used electromyography (EMG) to measure muscular activity in the face while participants were presented with emotional facial expressions. Compared with controls, individuals with ASD showed less

expression-compatible muscular activation. However, this study did not distinguish automatic imitation from emotional contagion. It is not clear whether, in the controls, observation of a smiling face promoted smiling directly, or by inducing positive affect. The results are also

difficult to interpret because face stimuli were presented, and there is a growing body of evidence that gaze patterns to faces are abnormal in autism (Klin et al. 2002). Specifically, individuals with ASD spend less time looking at the eye region of the face, which has been shown to be crucial in emotion recognition (Spezio et al. 2007). To overcome these problems, we used affectively neutral hand movements in our automatic imitation task. imitation effect is greater when the observed action is performed by a human effector than when it is performed

by a human-like mechanical device, or ‘robot’ (Kilner et al. 2003; Press et al. 2005). It has been argued that the latter effect is a direct consequence of increased mirror system activity in response to observation of human, compared with robotic, action (Tai et al. 2004). Thus, this study sought to investigate automatic imitation and the animacy effect in both a group of high-functioning adults with ASD and typically developing matched controls.

For both open and close responses, response onset was measured by recording the electromyogram (EMG) from the first dorsal interosseous muscle

P3030

This study tested automatic imitation of affectively neutral hand actions in ASD. In comparison with matched, typically developing controls, the ASD group showed an

equivalent automatic imitation effect, and signs of an increased animacy bias, namely, a greater difference in automatic imitation of human and robot actions.

The principal finding of the present study was that individuals with ASD did not show an impairment of automatic imitation of affectively neutral hand actions. This finding contrasts with reports of an imitation impairment in this group (Williams et al. 2004), but it is

not wholly anomalous with respect to studies of imitation in ASD. Several studies have found imitative performance to be unimpaired (e.g. Carpenter et al. 2001; Hamilton

et al. 2007; see also Sebanz et al. 2005) and, as noted in §1, performance in tests of voluntary imitation is vulnerable to the effects of non-specific factors such as theory of mind

and executive function impairments. Therefore, whether or not a particular voluntary imitation task presents a challenge to individuals with ASD may depend upon the interaction between two factors: the extent to which the task requires non-specific abilities and the degree to which these abilities are impaired in the particular sample of individuals recruited for the study.

Brass et al. 2003). The authors of these studies argue that distinguishing the self from

others, which relies on the theory of mind system, is a crucial component of imitation inhibition. Theories of mind deficits are well documented in ASD (for a review

see Frith & Frith 2003). Therefore, this hypothesis suggests that the ASD group showed a greater compatibility effect because they had problems inhibiting imitation of human actions. Such a suggestion is consonant with two clinical features of autism which indicate problems with imitation inhibition: echolalia (involuntary imitation of the speech patterns of others)

and echopraxia (involuntary imitation of observed actions; Russell 1997).