title: Priming of hand and foot response: is spatial attention to the body site enough?
abstract: The purpose of the present study was to test whether we see evidence for body compatibility effects when viewing both familiar and unusual body postures. Specifically, in a task where colour targets have to be discriminated, we tested whether spatial orienting to a body site is sufficient for effects of body compatibility to emerge when viewing a task-irrelevant body or whether effects are dependent on whether or not we are able to adopt the viewed body posture. The results suggest that spatial orienting to a body site is insufficient; rather we argue that it is only postures that are familiar and we are easily able to adopt that can be processed fluently and influence target discrimination. This points to a key contribution of motor representations to body compatibility effects.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Adeilad Brigantia, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales, UK, LL57 2AS. a.wiggett@bangor.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Alison J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Wiggett
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK.
authors.forename: Steven P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Tipper
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D003116:Color; D005260:Female; D005528:Foot; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011187:Posture; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013028:Space Perception; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Automatic imitation; Body-part priming; Motor expertise; Spatial priming