Project description
Exploring motor intention in plants
Cognitive science studies have demonstrated that intentions are reflected in the motion of agents, a phenomenon observed in humans and animals but not extensively studied in plants. Climbing plants, with their distinctive movement patterns and ability to adjust tendrils to support characteristics, challenge the notion that plant movement is solely driven by instinctive reflexes. This prompts questions about intentional movement planning in plants and whether it is finely tuned based on the motor intentions of surrounding plants. The EU-funded ROOMors project aims to investigate motor intentions in plants using experimental psychology techniques and plant physio-molecular approaches. This groundbreaking project seeks to revolutionise psychological research by uncovering the roots of plant behaviour, inviting an open-minded exploration of plants in comparative psychology.
Objective
Research in cognitive science has revealed that intentions become visible in the surface flow of agents motion. An example is that humans adopt different kinematics when reaching for an object to either displace it (i.e. individual intentions) or interact with a partner (i.e. social intentions). This phenomenon has been shown in humans and other animal species, but no studies have investigated whether it extends to the green kingdom. ROOMors aims at investigating for the first time motor intentions in plants. It capitalizes on recent findings of my research group that make this a timely and tractable issue. By focusing on the kinematic signatures characterizing the movement of climbing plants we observed that plants can program their movement in advance and they move the tendrils according to the specific characteristics of the to-be-grasped support. This result reverts the general consensus that plants movement is only driven by cause-effect mechanisms and hard-wired reflexes and gives rise to a number of questions that only a few years ago might have considered absurd: to what extent plant can intentionally plan a movement? Is plant movement fine-tuned according to the motor intentions exhibited by the surrounding plants?
ROOMors will answer these questions by blending experimental psychology techniques to study intentional actions (i.e. kinematics) with plant physio-molecular approaches to identify the (mostly unknown) signalling pathways at the basis of the implementation and the decoding of motor intentions by plants.
ROOMors will open a new path in psychological research that is more than about scientific discovery, it is about revolution that will compel us to see the green kingdom through a completely new lens. So open your mind, set aside your biases, and be prepared to welcome plants in the domain of comparative psychology for going at the roots of intentions.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
35122 Padova
Italy