Press, C and Bird, G and Walsh, E and Heyes, C (2008) Automatic imitation of intransitive actions. BRAIN COGNITION , 67 (1) 44 - 50. 10.1016/j.bandc.2007.11.001.
![[img]](/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png)
| PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader 60Kb |
Abstract
Previous research has indicated a potential discontinuity between monkey and human ventral premotor-parietal mirror systems, namely that monkey mirror systems process only transitive (object-directed) actions, whereas human mirror systems may also process intransitive (non-object-directed) actions. The present study investigated this discontinuity by seeking evidence of automatic imitation of intransitive actions-hand opening and closing-in humans using a simple reaction time (RT), stimulus-response compatibility paradigm. Left-right and up-down spatial compatibility were controlled by ensuring that stimuli were presented and responses executed in orthogonal planes, and automatic imitation was isolated from simple and complex orthogonal spatial compatibility by varying the anatomical identity of the stimulus hand and response hemispace, respectively. In all conditions, action compatible responding was faster than action incompatible responding, and no effects of spatial compatibility were observed. This experiment therefore provides evidence of automatic imitation of intransitive actions, and support for the hypothesis that human and monkey mirror systems differ with respect to the processing of intransitive actions. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Automatic imitation of intransitive actions |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.bandc.2007.11.001 |
| Keywords: | imitation, stimulus-response compatibility, spatial compatibility, mirror system, action observation, PREMOTOR CORTEX, CORTICOBASAL DEGENERATION, ORTHOGONAL STIMULUS, MOTOR FACILITATION, BIOLOGICAL MOTION, FINGER MOVEMENTS, MIRROR NEURONS, RECOGNITION, REPRESENTATIONS, COMPATIBILITY |
| UCL classification: | UCL > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Psychology and Language Sciences (Division of) > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience UCL > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences |
View download statistics for this itemArchive Staff Only: edit this record