Sex-specific effects of posture on the attribution of handedness to an imagined agent.
In a series of previous studies, we found that when participants were required to imagine another person performing a manual action, they imagined a significantly higher proportion of actions performed with their dominant rather than non-dominant hand, which indicates that shared motor representations between the self and the other are involved also during the imagination of others' actions. Interestingly, the activation of lateralized body-specific motor representations (as indexed by the congruence between the participant's handedness and the imagined person's handedness) appeared to be affected by the visual perspective adopted and participants' handedness. Given that past literature indicates that incongruent or unnatural postures interfere with motor imagery, we tested 480 right-handed participants to investigate whether subjects holding their right hand behind their back would have imagined right-handed actions less frequently than those holding their left hand behind their back. Moreover, we examined the effects of participant's sex, action category (simple or complex) and hand shape (open or fist). Contrary to our prediction, female participants holding their right hand behind their back imagined right-handed actions more frequently than those holding their left hand behind their back, whereas no significant effect was observed in male participants. We propose that the muscle contraction needed to keep a hand behind the back could activate the motor representations of that hand so as to increase the likelihood of imagining an action performed with the corresponding hand. Moreover, the sex difference observed is consistent with the greater use of embodied strategies by females than by males.
Department of Psychological Sciences, Health and Territory, University of Chieti, Via dei Vestini 29, 66013, Chieti, Italy. d.marzoli@unich.it.
Daniele
D
Marzoli
Department of Neurosciences, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, University of Chieti, Chieti, Italy.
Chiara
C
Lucafò
Department of Psychological Sciences, Health and Territory, University of Chieti, Via dei Vestini 29, 66013, Chieti, Italy.
Carmine
C
Rescigno
Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy.
Elena
E
Mussini
Department of Psychological Sciences, Health and Territory, University of Chieti, Via dei Vestini 29, 66013, Chieti, Italy.
Caterina
C
Padulo
Department of Psychological Sciences, Health and Territory, University of Chieti, Via dei Vestini 29, 66013, Chieti, Italy.
Giulia
G
Prete
Department of Psychological Sciences, Health and Territory, University of Chieti, Via dei Vestini 29, 66013, Chieti, Italy.
Anita
A
D'Anselmo
Department of Neurosciences, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, University of Chieti, Chieti, Italy.
Gianluca
G
Malatesta
Department of Psychological Sciences, Health and Territory, University of Chieti, Via dei Vestini 29, 66013, Chieti, Italy.
Luca
L
Tommasi
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D011187:Posture; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D055815:Young Adult
Action representation; Handedness; Motor imagery; Posture