Biological motion detection does not involve an automatic "perspective taking"

Abstract

Concurrent motor execution influences action perception. Previously, we presented evidence for a spatio-temporal tuning of this action-perception coupling (Christensen et al., JoV, 2009, 9(8)). Facilitatory influences were found only for synchronous and spatially similar actions. Additionally, when observing others, subjects automatically tend to embody another person’s visuo-spatial perspective (Thirioux et al., Brain Cogn, 2009. 70(2)). This raises the question, whether the performance increase for spatially congruent stimuli depends on such ‘disembodied self-locations’ and whether a bodyor visual-centered frame of reference determines spatial similarity.