Minimizing motor mimicry by myself: self-focus enhances online action-control mechanisms during motor contagion.
Ideomotor theory of human action control proposes that activation of a motor representation can occur either through internally-intended or externally-perceived actions. Critically, sometimes these alternatives of eliciting a motor response may be conflicting, for example, when intending one action and perceiving another, necessitating the recruitment of enhanced action-control to avoid motor mimicry. Based on previous neuroimaging evidence, suggesting that reduced mimicry is associated with self-related processing, we aimed to experimentally enhance these action-control mechanisms during motor contagion by inducing self-focus. In two within-subjects experiments, participants had to enforce their action intention against an external motor contagion tendency under heightened and normal self-focus. During high self-focus participants showed reduced motor mimicry, induced either by mirror self-observation or self-referential judgments. This indicates that a self-focus provoking situation can enhance online action-control mechanisms, needed to resist unintentional motor contagion tendencies and thereby enables a modulation of automatic mirroring responses.
Spengler
Stephanie
S
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Independent Junior Research Group Body & Self, Leipzig, Germany. spengler@cbs.mpg.de
Brass
Marcel
M
Kühn
Simone
S
Schütz-Bosbach
Simone
S
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012649:Self Concept; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology