experiments have suggested that understanding actions and objects invoke some of the same brain structures used to perform the actions and to act on the objects. With respect to actions in particular, humans sometimes use their own motor repertoire in interpreting actions, possibly by imagining or mentally simulating the perceived action. When people are asked to observe the actions of others, particularly goal-directed actions involving the hands or mouth, they seem to activate brain regions for moving the hands or mouth. Thus, there is a link between observing actions and executing actions. This has a relevance to education as well: “Understanding by doing” (1.e., by observing and then executing) has a long and valued tradition in American education’, and these recent scientific results might help us understand why this is effective.
When my son was 5 years old, he was a member of a kids’ soccer team in Hyde Park, on the campus of the University of Chicago. His coach was a professor of history at the university, a woman who had never played soccer, but was a voracious reader, and in her readings on the subject, took careful note of all the methods needed to play soccer as well as the rules and regulations. She methodically took the kids through all the (theoretically relevant motor) steps needed to dribble the ball, to pass, and to shoot — flex your foot this way, bend your leg that way, keep your arms this way, etc. The kids tried to follow the verbal instructions but their motor performance was less than stellar — they learned a little bit, but they lost all of their dozen games, for a depressing 0-12 record. The next season, the same team was coached by another volunteer parent, this time an engineer from
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Trinidad, who had played soccer his whole life. The instructions he gave the kids were quite different: “Follow me and do what I do”. There were no suggested foot flexions or extensions, and no specific leg movements proposed. The kids learned the skills, and won all their games. Why? The kids learned by observing a good model and then imitating what they observed the person doing, which appears to be a way to learn motor skills that is far stronger than that of explicit motor instruction.
When people have strokes, a part of their brain dies, and they can lose the ability to speak or use a hand properly. We are now using this idea of imitation in a treatment program to re-educate people with strokes to use their hands better and to pronounce words better. For these imitation-based treatments, people first observe a particular hand action or speech sample on a video monitor, and then they try to produce it. In fact, they observe it over and over again for a while before they even try to do it at all. They are never told how to move their hands or mouths; they are just told to copy what they see. Over the course of six weeks, people with hand problems progress from imitating a simple grasp of a cup to picking up a telephone and dialing a number to picking up a toothbrush, brushing their teeth, and returning the brush to the sink. Those with speech problems progress from imitating simple words of a single syllable to longer less common words and even short phrases. We have already shown that these therapies have beneficial effects in a number of people and are now trying it out more extensively.
There seems to be an important link between observing and executing actions. Similarly, there is a link
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