Does the human motor system simulate Pinocchio's actions? Coacting with a human hand versus a wooden hand in a dyadic interaction.
Corepresenting actions performed by conspecifics is essential to understanding their goals, inferring their mental states, and cooperating with them. It has recently been demonstrated that joint-action effects in a Simon task provide a good index for corepresentation. In the present study, we investigated whether corepresentation is restricted to biological agents or also occurs for nonbiological events. Participants performed a Simon task either with an image of a human hand or with a wooden analogue. The Simon-like effect emerged only when participants coacted with a biological agent. The lack of the joint-action effect when participants interacted with a wooden hand indicates that the human corepresentation system is biologically tuned.
Tsai
Chia-Chin
CC
Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan. jesstsai@gate.sinica.edu.tw
Brass
Marcel
M
D000328:Adult; D001186:Artificial Limbs; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D011584:Psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D014796:Visual Perception