It is well known that perceiving another's body movements activates corresponding motor representations in an observer's brain. It is nevertheless true that in many situations simply imitating another's actions would not be an effective or appropriate response, as successful interaction often requires complementary rather than emulative movements. At what point does the automatic tendency to mirror another's actions become the inclination to carry out appropriate, complementary movements? In the present study, single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to explore corticospinal excitability in participants observing action sequences evoking imitative or complementary movements. TMS was delivered at five time points corresponding to different moments in time when key kinematic landmarks characterizing an observed action occurred. A variation in motor evoked potentials (MEPs) confirmed that the motor system flexibly shifts from imitative to complementary action tendencies. That shift appears to take place very precociously in time. Observers are attuned to advance movement information and can use it to anticipate a future course of action and to prepare for an appropriate, complementary action. Altogether, these findings represent a step forward in research concerning social action-perception coupling mechanisms providing important data to better understand the role of predictive simulation in social contexts.

A large body of research reports that perceiving body movements of other people activates motor representations in the observer's brain. This automatic resonance mechanism appears to be imitative in nature. However, action observation does not inevitably lead to symmetrical motor facilitation: Mirroring the observed movement might be disadvantageous for successfully performing joint actions. What remains unknown is how we are to resolve the possible conflict between the automatic tendency to "mirror" and the need to perform different context-related complementary actions. By using single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation, we found that observation of a double-step action characterized by an implicit complementary request engendered a shift from symmetrical simulation to reciprocity in the participants' corticospinal activity. Accordingly, differential motor facilitation was revealed for the snapshots evoking imitative and complementary gestures despite the fact that the observed type of grasp was identical. Control conditions in which participants observed the same action sequence but in a context not implying a complementary request were included as well. The results provide compelling evidence that when an observed action calls for a nonidentical complementary action, an interplay between the automatic tendency to resonate with what is observed and to implicitly prepare for the complementary action does emerge. In other words, implicit complementary requests might have the ability to draw attention to specific features of the context affording nonidentical responses.

A large body of research reports that perceiving body movements of other people activates motor representations in the observer's brain. This automatic resonance mechanism appears to be imitative in nature. However, action observation does not inevitably lead to symmetrical motor facilitation: mirroring the observed movement might be disadvantageous for successfully performing joint actions. In two experiments, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate whether the excitability of the corticospinal system was selectively modulated by the social dimension of an observed action. We recorded motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) from right-hand muscles during the observation of an action sequence which, depending on context, might or might not elicit a complementary response. The results demonstrate a differential motor facilitation depending on action context. Specifically, when the context called for a complementary action, the excitability pattern reflected the under-threshold activation of a complementary action, whereas when the context did not imply acting in a complementary manner, the observer's corticospinal activity reflected symmetrical motor resonance. We contend that the mechanisms underlying action observation are flexible and respond to contextual factors that guide the social interaction between individuals beyond emulation.

Although facilitation of the corticospinal system during action observation is widely accepted, it remains controversial whether this facilitation reflects a replica of the observed movements or the goal of the observed motor acts. In the present study, we asked whether, when an object is grasped by using a tool, corticospinal facilitation represents 1) the movements of the hand, 2) the movements of the tool, or 3) the distal goal of the action. To address this question, we recorded motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) to transcranial magnetic stimulation while participants observed a hand reaching and grasping a mothball by using 3 types of pliers, requiring different hand-tool movements to achieve the same goal (grasping the object). We found that MEPs recorded from the opponens pollicis and from the first dorsal interosseous reflected the observed hand movements rather than the movements of the tool or the distal goal of the action. These results suggest that during observation of tool actions, detailed motor matching recruits online the same muscles as those used in the observed action.

Recent studies show that motor responses similar to those present in one's own pain (freezing effect) occur as a result of observation of pain in others. This finding has been interpreted as the physiological basis of empathy. Alternatively, it can represent the physiological counterpart of an embodiment phenomenon related to the sense of body ownership. We compared the empathy and the ownership hypotheses by manipulating the perspective of the observed hand model receiving pain so that it could be a first-person perspective, the one in which embodiment occurs, or a third-person perspective, the one in which we usually perceive the others. Motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) by TMS over M1 were recorded from first dorsal interosseous muscle, whereas participants observed video clips showing (a) a needle penetrating or (b) a Q-tip touching a hand model, presented either in first-person or in third-person perspective. We found that a pain-specific inhibition of MEP amplitude (a significantly greater MEP reduction in the "pain" compared with the "touch" conditions) only pertains to the first-person perspective, and it is related to the strength of the self-reported embodiment. We interpreted this corticospinal modulation according to an "affective" conception of body ownership, suggesting that the body I feel as my own is the body I care more about.