Figure 1.

Image of the setup and timing of the experimental runs. A, The setup required participants to gaze at the fixation point marked with a cross while performing the tasks. The stimuli are shown on the right. B, At the beginning of each trial, the color of the fixation light cued participants about the task to be performed at the end of the trial (grasp, reach, or imagine grasping). After 4 s, an auditory cue instructed participants whether they had to view or touch the object during the exploration phase that occurred 2 s later and was cued by a “beep” sound. In visual trials, the object was illuminated for 4 s, whereas in haptic trials, participants haptically explored the object in the dark. The end of the exploration phase was cued by another “beep” sound. The exploration phase was followed by a delay of 18 s, after which a “go” recorded voice prompted participants to perform the movement that they had been instructed at the beginning of the trial. A “stop” recorded voice instructed participants to abort the trial. We used an ITI of 20 s. C, Group-averaged event-related BOLD activity from ventral LOtv in the LH for visual trials (dotted lines) and haptic trials (solid lines). Note that go and stop trials were indicated only at the end of the trial. Therefore, time course graphs before the go/stop cue show the %BOLD signal change (%BSC) for grasp (green), reach (light blue), and imagine grasping (orange). The time course graphs after the go/stop cue show the %BSC also for stop trials (dark green). The motion artifacts (dashed lines) at volume 1 (or second 2) and volume 12 (or second 24) were modeled with “predictors of no interest” to account for artifact variance and were excluded from further analysis. Events in C are time locked to correspond to events in B.