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Visuo-motor interference with a virtual partner is equally present in cooperative and competitive interactions

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Abstract

Automatic imitation of observed actions is thought to be a powerful mechanism, one that may mediate the reward value of interpersonal interactions, but that could also generate visuo-motor interference when interactions involve complementary movements. Since interpersonal coordination seems to be crucial both when cooperating and competing with others, the questions arises as to whether imitation—and thus visuo-motor interference—occurs in both scenarios. To address this issue, we asked human participants to engage in high- or low-interactive (Interactive or Cued condition, respectively), cooperative or competitive, joint reach-to-grasps with a virtual partner. More specifically, interactions occurred in: (i) a Cued condition, where participants simply adapted their movement timing to synchronize with (during cooperation) or anticipate (during competition) the virtual partner’s grasp; (ii) an Interactive condition requiring the same adaptation, as well as a real-time selection of their action according to the virtual character’s movement. To simulate a realistic human–human interaction, the virtual character would change its movement speed in consecutive trials according to participants’ behaviour. Results demonstrate that visuo-motor interference—as indexed by movement kinematics (higher maximum wrist height during complementary compared to imitative power grips)—emerge in both cooperative and competitive motor interactions only when predictions about the partner’s movements are needed to perform one’s own action (interactive condition). These results support the idea that simulative imitation is heavily present when individuals need to match their behaviours closely.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Gaetano Tieri for developing the experimental stimuli. We would also like to thank Dr. Enea Francesco Pavone and BrainTrends for building the experimental set-up. BrainTrends has no financial or intellectual conflict of interest in connection with this manuscript. We thank Anna Bianco for the drawings in Fig. 1.

Funding

This study was funded by the ERC advanced Grant eHOnesty awarded to SMA and by Sapienza University (Progetti di Ricerca Medi 2016) and by the Ministry of Health (Ricerca Finalizzata, Giovani Ricercatori 2016, protocol number GR-2016-02361008) awarded to MC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SCNLab, Department of Psychology, “Sapienza” University of Rome, via dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Vanessa Era, Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Carolina Mancusi & Matteo Candidi

  2. IRCCS, Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy

    Vanessa Era, Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Carolina Mancusi & Matteo Candidi

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  1. Vanessa Era
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  2. Salvatore Maria Aglioti
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  3. Carolina Mancusi
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  4. Matteo Candidi
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Contributions

Designed research: VE, SMA, MC; Performed research: VE, CM; Analyzed data: VE, CM, MC; Wrote the paper: VE, SMA, MC.

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Correspondence to Vanessa Era or Matteo Candidi.

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All procedures performed in study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (Fondazione Santa Lucia) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Era, V., Aglioti, S.M., Mancusi, C. et al. Visuo-motor interference with a virtual partner is equally present in cooperative and competitive interactions. Psychological Research 84, 810–822 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1090-8

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