Attention modulates the specificity of automatic imitation to human actors

The perception of actions performed by others activates one's own motor system. Recent studies disagree as to whether this effect is specific to actions performed by other humans, an issue complicated by differences in perceptual salience between human and non-human stimuli. We addressed this issue by examining the automatic imitation of actions stimulated by viewing a virtual, computer-generated, hand. This stimulus was held constant across conditions, but participants' attention to the virtualness of the hand was manipulated by informing some participants during instructions that they would see a computer-generated model of a hand, while making no mention of this to others. In spite of this attentional manipulation, participants in both conditions were generally aware of the virtualness of the hand. Nevertheless, automatic imitation of the virtual hand was significantly reduced--but not eliminated--when participants were told they would see a virtual hand. These results demonstrate that attention modulates the human bias of automatic imitation to non-human actors.