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Response-specific effects in a joint action task: social inhibition of return effects do not emerge when observed and executed actions are different

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Abstract

Although the inhibition of return (IOR) effect is primarily studied when people act individually, IOR is also observed in social environments where a person observes a partner’s response before executing their own response (social or sIOR). Specifically, an observer takes longer to initiate a response to a target at a location that another individual has just responded to than to another location. The present study was conducted to determine if sIOR emerges when two individuals execute different actions—one participant executed keypress responses and the other completed aiming movements to the same set of stimuli. The two conditions in the present experiment were designed to separate the effects of observing a co-actor’s target information from observing their subsequent response. In the Full Vision condition, observers saw both the target stimuli and the response of the partner. In the Partial Vision condition, observers witnessed the response of the partner, but did not see the target stimulus or any other potentially attention capturing event at the target location. It was found that, although sIOR emerged in the Full Vision condition, sIOR did not emerge in the Partial Vision condition. These and other previous findings on the impact of action goal on sIOR are discussed with reference to the potential contributions of attention and action co-representation mechanisms to the sIOR effect.

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Notes

  1. In the present paper, a paired-alternating method was used in which participants execute two responses and then watch their partner execute two responses (i.e., AABBAABB…). As a consequence, individual trials (in which the person follows their own response) and joint trials (in which the person follows the action of their partner) are intermixed into the same blocks. In other studies, a straight-alternating approach has been used where participants alternate on each trial (i.e., ABABAB…). The latter straight-alternating approach may be preferred in some circumstances because it indexes the more interesting sIOR in isolation from the iIOR generated by one’s own actions. The present work aimed to assess both sIOR and iIOR and, as such, the decision was made to employ the paired-alternating approach.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Discovery Grant and Undergraduate Student Research Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and an Early Researcher Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, Centre for Motor Control, University of Toronto, 55 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 2W6, Canada

    Joseph Manzone & Timothy N. Welsh

  2. School of Kinesiology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

    Joseph Manzone

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Geoff G. Cole

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Hull, UK

    Paul A. Skarratt

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  1. Joseph Manzone
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Correspondence to Timothy N. Welsh.

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Manzone, J., Cole, G.G., Skarratt, P.A. et al. Response-specific effects in a joint action task: social inhibition of return effects do not emerge when observed and executed actions are different. Psychological Research 81, 1059–1071 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-016-0794-x

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