Proprioception, vision and egocentric behaviour of children with five to nine years old in manipulative actions

• Grant number: 10/08122-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2010
• End date: July 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Physical Education
• Principal Investigator: Edison de Jesus Manoel
• Grantee: Edison de Jesus Manoel
• Host Institution: Escola de Educação Física e Esporte (EEFE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Motor actions apart from having intentionality as their main feature are also marked by a complex sensory-motor relationship that comprehend sensory information of one own body and from the environment (afference). To this set of information it is aggregated another set of information resulting from movement in the environment (efference). The organization and conduction of action depend upon sensory-motor coordination. The development of sensory-motor coordination may be the most ancient and universal evolutive fact in regard to motricity being commom to the majority of living systems, unicellular and multicellular. Traditional conceptions on this coordination have assumed a mechanical view of the process in which an organism processes information from the environment, preceives them, makes decisions, programs responses and performs movements. Nevertheless, in the last decade, these conceptions have been put aside in favour of a more dynamical view in which to perceive one needs to act and vice versa. Neurophysiological evidence points out that perception happens within the body limits, hence sensory-motor coordination has in the body of the agent its main reference. Jean Piaget was an author who was fundamental to show psychologically that knowledge is not in the knower nor in the object, but in the relationship between the two in transaction that is mediated by the of the former on the latter. In this process, there is a transition during childhood that refers to the passage from the egocentric behaviour (actions of first degree) to a descentered behaviour (actions of second degree). Proprioception and vision are two essential sensory pathways for the sensory-motor coordination underlying motor actions and the age period between 5 and 9 years particularly relevant for the competence to use such information in action programming and control. This is the same period marked by transitions in behaviour during which children cease to be egocentric. To this date, we found no studies considering the development of modal perception (vision and proprioceptive) and intermodal (integration of proprioception and vision) in regard to egocentrism present in child development. The present study will focus on the possible heterochrony between the two kinds of development: modal and intermodal perception with modes of acting (egocentric and decentered). (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

MANOEL, EDISON DE J.; VIANA FELICIO, PEDRO FERNANDO; MAKIDA-DIONISIO, CRISTIANE; SOARES, RAFAEL DO NASCIMENTO; FREITAS, ALESSANDRO; GIMENEZ, ROBERTO. Proprioceptive-Visual Integration and Embodied Cognition: A Developmental Perspective. PERCEPTUAL AND MOTOR SKILLS, v. 123, n. 2, p. 460-476, OCT 2016. (10/08122-0)