Journal
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE
Volume 36, Issue 5, Pages 1174-1183Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/a0019953
Keywords
automatic imitation; effector; associative sequence learning (ASL); mirror neuron
Categories
Funding
- Medical Research Council (MRC)
- Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
- European Community [NEST 012929]
- Economic and Social Research Council [RES-538-28-1001] Funding Source: researchfish
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The effector dependence of automatic imitation was investigated using a stimulus response compatibility (SRC) procedure during which participants were required to make an open or closed response with their hand or their mouth. The correct response for each trial was indicated by a pair of letters in Experiments 1 and 2 and by a colored square in Experiment 3. Each of these imperative stimuli was accompanied by task-irrelevant action images depicting a hand or mouth opening or closing. In relation to the response, the irrelevant stimulus was movement compatible or movement incompatible, and effector compatible or effector incompatible. A movement compatibility effect was observed for both hand and mouth responses. These movement compatibility effects were present when the irrelevant stimulus was effector compatible and when it was effector incompatible, but were smaller when the irrelevant stimulus and response effectors were incompatible. Consistent with the associative sequence learning (ASL) model of imitation, these findings indicate that automatic imitation is partially effector dependent and therefore that the effector dependence of intentional imitation reflects, at least in part, the nature of the mechanisms that mediate visuomotor translation for imitation.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available