Abstract
Ideomotor movements may arise in individuals while they watch goal-directed actions or events. In a previous study we developed a paradigm for investigating ideomotor movements induced through watching the outcome of one’s own action. In the present study we extended the paradigm to investigate both movements induced through watching the outcome of one’s own as well as somebody else’s action (player mode and observer mode respectively). We report three experiments, each with differing conditions for the player mode, but identical conditions for the observer mode. Results indicate that in both modes ideomotor movements are governed by two basic principles: Perceptual induction and intentional induction. In the player mode we replicated and extended previous findings, indicating dissociation between hand and head movements. In the observer mode no such dissociation was obtained. Our findings suggest that people perform, in their own actions, what they see being performed in other people’s actions. Induction of action through observation can pertain to both the action’s physical surface and underlying intentions. Furthermore, our results suggest that perceptual induction is ubiquitous but may be locally suspended for intentional action control. We discuss our results in the framework of theories invoking a strong overlap between representational structures for action perception and action planning.
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Notes
It may also be expected that ideomotor movements would be, in general, weaker and/or less frequent in monitoring the actions of others vs. self-performed actions (tracking vs. bowling). However, since the two tasks are quite different in their basic functional requirements, we believe that comparisons of absolute magnitudes of induced movements (i.e., main effects) do not make much sense. However, this argument does not affect comparisons of magnitudes of differences (i.e., interactions).
Randomized sequences of 192 event configurations from the bowling task were prepared as stimuli for each of the two conditions of the tracking task. These bowling patterns had actually been recorded from players’ performance in previous experiments. Depending on the task condition they showed initial corrective interventions either on the ball or the target. As in the bowling task, the sequences of 192 bowling patterns consisted of four replications of the 48 possible trajectories. Furthermore, these patterns exhibited an equal number of hits, left misses, and right misses (one-third each).
As is illustrated in Fig. 3 the beginning was set at the true onset of that period (0%), whereas the end was set at 80%. This latter point was chosen because pilot studies and earlier experiments had shown that in the very final phase of the induction period, induced movements may often be confounded with reset movements, i.e., movements that go back to the effector’s original default position (cf. Knuf et al., 2001, p. 787).
The application of the 200-ms standstill criterion could have one of two consequences, depending on whether or not a sufficiently long standstill was observed during the induction period of a trial. If there was no standstill of sufficient length, the trial was discarded. If there was a standstill of sufficient length, effective NIS values were computed from the net shift arising between the end of the standstill period and the 80% line. These effective NIS values were entered into the ANOVAs to be performed.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Lothar Knuf for extensive support in planning, running, and analyzing the experiments and for critical comments on a earlier version of the paper; Heide John for handling and support in shaping the manuscript; and Max Schreder for preparing the figures.
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De Maeght, S., Prinz, W. Action induction through action observation. Psychological Research 68, 97–114 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-003-0148-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-003-0148-3