CoActions Lab

The ability to learn and to perform structured sequences is critical in most human behaviors, such as language, music, but also in skillful movements, that make humans so distinctive. Learning those sequences relies on “chunking”, which can be viewed as two distinct processes: a first chunking operation allows you to parse the sequence into shorter clusters (as when you learn a new phone number) and is called “segmentation”. The following chunking process is named “concatenation” and consists in assembling several short chunks into longer segments. Critically, chunking makes the processing and learning of sequences more efficient. This research project aims to determine the neural correlates of chunking. Indeed, the segmentation and concatenation processes could rely on different brain structures: the former would rely on a left fronto-parietal network, including Broca’s area, whereas the latter would be performed by the basal ganglia. However, so far, these conclusions are based on correlative functional imaging data and the causal role of the basal ganglia and Broca’s area in chunking still requires further empirical validation.