title: One step ahead: The perceived kinematics of others' actions are biased toward expected goals.
abstract: Action observation is often conceptualized in a bottom-up manner, where sensory information activates conceptual (or motor) representations. In contrast, here we show that expectations about an actor's goal have a top-down predictive effect on action perception, biasing it toward these goals. In 3 experiments, participants observed hands reach for or withdraw from objects and judged whether a probe stimulus corresponded to the hand's final position. Before action onset, participants generated action expectations on the basis of either object types (safe or painful, Experiments 1 and 2) or abstract color cues (Experiment 3). Participants more readily mistook probes displaced in a predicted position (relative to unpredicted positions) for the hand's final position, and this predictive bias was larger when the movement and expectation were aligned. These effects were evident for low-level movement and high-level goal expectancies. Expectations bias action observation toward the predicted goals. These results challenge current bottom-up views and support recent predictive models of action observation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Plymouth.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hudson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Plymouth.
authors.forename: Toby
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nicholson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Plymouth.
authors.forename: William A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Simpson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Plymouth.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ellis
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Plymouth.
authors.forename: Patric
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bach
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D003118:Color Perception; D003210:Concept Formation; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D009949:Orientation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012718:Set, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult