The interactions between perceptual knowledge and action:

In the scientific literature, there is a proposal that suggests that perceptual knowledge is independent from action processes (i.e., the areas in the brain used for programming actions are separate to the brain areas used for processing perception knowledge). Our research challenges this idea by investigating what types of perceptual knowledge appear to influence action, and also how action experience or skill can influence perceptual knowledge.

The shared processes between action observation, action imagination and action execution:

The scientific literature shows that the observation or imagination of action activates the same areas of the brain as those used for action execution. We investigate these shared processes by measuring how action observation or imagination appears to prime execution. We also investigate what the neural mechanism processes are that underly the primed behaviour.

Space perception and action:

Research in the scientific literature shows that the brain appears to process space within reach differently to space outside of reach. Our research investigates the neural processes that are used for within reach space processes, and particularly, whether the boundary between the two spaces can be modified. Using virtual reality, we are for the first time able to test whether space perception is derived from long-term neural learning from everyday interactions in the true world, or whether space perception can be modified dynamically with sudden changes to the space or body dimension.

The consequences of brain ageing degeneration, or brain damage on perception and action behaviour:

As people age, their perception and action behaviours are thought to deteriorate. People see less well and their actions are typically slower, and in some cases, clumsy. Our research investigates the relationship between perception and action deterioration with normal aged participants in order to understand whether there is a common deterioration across behaviours, or whether the deterioration of one factor leads to apparent reduced performance in a variety of different behaviours. In similar research, we investigate the perception and action behaviours of participants that have had brain damage or have developmental problems. Our aim is to develop a better understanding of how impaired perception or action influence each other, and other behaviours. To carry out these investigations, we develop new evaluations. Some of these will be published in due course on this website.

Cortical excitability and rehabilitation / re-education:

At the Université catholique de Louvain, there are excellent opportunities for developing new rehabilitation / re-education methods based on theoretical findings. At present, we are working on four related projects that aim to develop new methods of rehabilitation / re-education. The first project is with normal aged adults. In some recent research, we discovered that reduced action speed with increased age could be explained by the physical strength of the participant. Furthermore, we found that if we strength trained participants, their action performance increased in comparison to before the exercise, and to a control group, irrespective of the participants age. These findings suggest that reduced action performance with age is unlikely due to physical deterioration, but is perhaps rather due to a lack of exercise. We are currently investigating whether this suggestion is correct. The second project investigates the use of action observation for priming perception and action performance in brain damaged participants that have speech apraxia (problems in speaking due to impaired lip action as a consequence of brain damage), hemiparesis (problems in limb action as a consequence of brain damage) and hemineglect (problems in spatial attention as a consequence of brain damage). The third project uses direct cortical stimulation to moderate cortical excitability and abnormal neural inhibitory mechanisms caused by brain damage. The project investigates the effects of stimulation to parietal regions in patients with unilateral parietal lesions, and measures perception and action behaviours. The final project is using virtual reality to moderate the perceived environment experienced by the patient in order to promote re-learning of perception and action behaviour.