BACKGROUND READING (OPTIONAL)

Humphreys, G. W., Forde, E. M. E, & Riddoch, M. J. (2001) The planning and execution of everyday actions. In In B. Rapp (Ed.), The Handbook of Cognitive Neuropsychology: What Deficits Reveal About the Human Mind, Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

REQUIRED READINGS
(AVAILABLE THROUGH COLUMBIA E-JOURNALS)

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/science/sjtitle.html

1.  Forde, E. M. E., & Humphreys, G. W. (2000). The role of semantic knowledge and working memory in everyday tasks. Brain and Cognition, 44, 214-252.

2.  Cooper, R., & Shallice, T. (2000). Contention scheduling and the control of routine activities. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 17(4), 297-338.

QUESTION FOR CRITICAL THINKING:

In the course of executing everyday, routine actions, we sometimes make silly errors, like pouring salt into our coffee (perhaps because the shaker is closer and it contains "white stuff"), rather than the sugar, as we intended. These errors are termed "action slips" or "lapses," to indicate that that the problem is less a loss of memory for the appropriate action, but a slip or lapse in the selection of the appropriate action.

Over break, keep a "diary" of the "action slips" that you make and categorize them in terms of the "5 Normal Action Lapses" outlined by Cooper and Shallice (pg. 300). Then, pick two instances*, which differ in the type of lapse, and discuss how the failure might have occurred in the terms of their model. Include discussion of top-down activation, environmental factors, self-activation and lateral inhibition (i.e., was one schema self-activating, was there a failure to deselect a schema, etc.). Also, describe the Supervisory Attentional System and its contribution to action planning and your errors.

*If you are lucky and unusual enough to experience one or no action slips over break, then come up with two that you experienced sometime in your past, borrow some from a friend, or just make them up!

GLOSSARY:

AFFORDANCES: J.J. Gibson have argued that objects can 'afford' an action, based on the overlap between the perceptual features of the objects and the goal of the actor. A rock may 'afford' hammering because it is sufficiently large, it can be gripped in an appropriate manner, and it has a hard surface.

ADDITIONAL READINGS:

1.  Humphreys, G. W., & Forde, E. M. E. (1998). Disordered action schemas and action disorganization syndrome. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 15, 771-811.

2.. Humphreys G. W., & Riddoch, M.J. (2001). Detection by action: neuropsychological evidence for action-defined templates in search. Nature Neuroscience, 4(1), 84-88.

3. Humphreys, G. W., & Riddoch, M. J. (2000). One more cup of coffee for the road: object-action assemblies, response blocking and response capture after frontal-lobe damage. Experimental Brain Research, 133, 81-93.

4.  Jahanshahi, M., & Frith, C. D. (1998). Willed action and its impairments. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 15 (6/7/8), 483-533.

5.  Riddoch, M. J., Edwards, M. G., Humphreys, G. W., West, R., & Heafield, T. (1998). Visual affordances direct action: Neuropsychological evidence from manual interference. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 15 (6/7/8), 645-683.

6.  Schwartz, M. F., et al. (1995). Analysis of a disorder of everyday action. Cognition Neuropsychology, 12(8), 863-892.

7.  Schwartz, M. F., et al. (1998). Naturalistic action impairment in Closed Head Injury. Neuropsychology, 12(1), 13-28.