The influence of action observation on action execution: Dissociating the contribution of action on perception, perception on action, and resolving conflict

Abstract

For more than 15 years, motor interference paradigms (Brass, Bekkering, Wohlschläger, & Prinz, 2000;Brass, Zysset, & von Cramon, 2001) processes. In the current EEG study, we therefore aimed to disentangle influence of low-level perceptual and motoric from high-level cognitive mechanisms. We focused on potential congruency differences in the visual N190, a component related to the processing of biological motion, the Readiness Potential, a component related to motor preparation and the high-level P3 component.Interestingly, we detected congruency effects in each of these components, suggesting that the interference effect in an automatic imitation paradigm is not only related to high-level processes such as self-other distinction but also to more low-level influences of perception on action and action on perception.Moreover, we documented relationships of the neuronal effects with (autistic) behaviour.

The Emotional Modulation of Facial Mimicry: A Kinematic Study

“…Indeed, participants started to move earlier when gestures were congruent (in terms of motor features) with the target movement, suggesting that a prior activation of the same motor program could facilitate the beginning of a subsequent response. This is consistent with a large amount of evidences showing how the observation of a congruent/incongruent motor sequence affects the execution of a subsequent movement (Brass et al, 2001 ); for an extensive review see (Heyes, 2011 ), modulating both perceptual and motor planning phases prior to movement execution (Deschrijver et al, 2017 ).…”

Event-related potentials of automatic imitation are modulated by ethnicity during stimulus processing, but not during motor execution

“…During SRC presentation, two ERPs, the N190 and the P3, were investigated. The N190, a component suggested to reflect visual categorization of human body parts 16 , has recently been documented as sensitive to interference in the imitation-inhibition task, with more negative left-hemispheric amplitudes for incongruent trials 12 . Specifically, it has been suggested to index low-level visual categorization and self-other discrimination processes 12 .…”

“…The N190, a component suggested to reflect visual categorization of human body parts 16 , has recently been documented as sensitive to interference in the imitation-inhibition task, with more negative left-hemispheric amplitudes for incongruent trials 12 . Specifically, it has been suggested to index low-level visual categorization and self-other discrimination processes 12 . The amplitude of the parietal P3 has been shown to be sensitive to the SRC mappings in Simon and joint action tasks, enhanced for congruent as compared to incongruent trials (the go-P3 in go/no-go tasks) 17 – 20 .…”

“…action). To this date the neural dynamics of automatic imitation have only recently started to be investigated (see for example 12 ). The present study aims to extend these studies to the presentation of ethnically diverse hand stimuli to establish potential generalizability of the automatic imitation effect across ethnicities.…”

Colors of Autism Spectrum: A Single Paradigm Explains the Heterogeneity in Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Furthermore, upon separating automatic imitation from spatial compatibility effects (i.e., separating responses on the same side and on the opposite side), there was no relationship between spatial compatibility and autism symptom severity, meaning that individuals with ASD exhibited increased (and not decreased) imitations. The phenomenon is called hyperimitation (Bird et al, 2007;Spengler, Bird, and Brass, 2010;Sowden et al, 2016;Deschrijver, Wiersema, and Brass, 2017). These findings are supported by evidence that individuals with ASD frequently engage in strong imitative behavior, such as echolalia and echopraxia.…”