TY - JOUR

T1 - Concurrently Observed Actions Are Represented Not as Compound Actions but as Independent Actions

AU - Cracco, Emiel

AU - Isterdael, Clara Van

AU - Genschow, Oliver

AU - Brass, Marcel

N1 - Funding Information: Emiel Cracco was supported by two postdoctoral fellowships awarded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO18/PDO/049 and 12U0322N). Marcel Brass was supported by an Einstein Strategic Professorship of the Einstein Foundation Berlin. The stimuli, experimental programs, data, and analyses of can be found on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/gua5x/). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 American Psychological Association

PY - 2022/11/1

Y1 - 2022/11/1

N2 - Recent research suggests that we can simultaneously represent the actions of multiple agents in our motor system. However, it is unclear exactly how concurrently observed actions are represented. Here, we tested two competing hypotheses. According to the independence hypothesis, concurrently observed actions are represented as independent actions. According to the compound hypothesis, they are instead integrated, whenever possible, into compound actions. In Experiment 1 (N = 32), we first show that the standard imitation-inhibition task with a single hand can be extended to measure automatic imitation of compound actions. In Experiments 2–5 (NTotal = 368), we then investigated the representation of concurrently observed actions by further extending this task to include two hands. The results showed that two hands performing two different actions (e.g., one hand lifts index finger, one hand lifts middle finger) produced an effect similar to that of both hands performing just one of those actions (e.g., both hands lift index finger) but different from that of both hands performing both actions together (i.e., a compound action; lift both index and middle finger). This indicates that concurrently observed actions are coded as independent actions in the motor system.

AB - Recent research suggests that we can simultaneously represent the actions of multiple agents in our motor system. However, it is unclear exactly how concurrently observed actions are represented. Here, we tested two competing hypotheses. According to the independence hypothesis, concurrently observed actions are represented as independent actions. According to the compound hypothesis, they are instead integrated, whenever possible, into compound actions. In Experiment 1 (N = 32), we first show that the standard imitation-inhibition task with a single hand can be extended to measure automatic imitation of compound actions. In Experiments 2–5 (NTotal = 368), we then investigated the representation of concurrently observed actions by further extending this task to include two hands. The results showed that two hands performing two different actions (e.g., one hand lifts index finger, one hand lifts middle finger) produced an effect similar to that of both hands performing just one of those actions (e.g., both hands lift index finger) but different from that of both hands performing both actions together (i.e., a compound action; lift both index and middle finger). This indicates that concurrently observed actions are coded as independent actions in the motor system.

KW - Automatic imitation

KW - Compound actions

KW - Integration

KW - Multiple agents

KW - Business psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85138169354&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/3eb908a3-612d-3af7-8642-555421629ef4/

U2 - 10.1037/xhp0001043

DO - 10.1037/xhp0001043

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 36074567

AN - SCOPUS:85138169354

VL - 48

SP - 1172

EP - 1185

JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

SN - 0096-1523

IS - 11

ER -