Abstract
Joint actions often require agents to track others’ actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own. Previous research has indicated that this can lead to visuomotor interference effects when it occurs outside of joint action. How is this avoided or overcome in joint actions? We hypothesized that when joint action partners represent their actions as interrelated components of a plan to bring about a joint action goal, each partner’s movements need not be represented in relation to distinct, incongruent proximal goals. Instead they can be represented in relation to a single proximal goal – especially if the movements are, or appear to be, mechanically linked to a more distal joint action goal. To test this, we implemented a paradigm in which participants produced finger movements that were either congruent or incongruent with those of a virtual partner, and either with or without a joint action goal (the joint flipping of a switch, which turned on two light bulbs). Our findings provide partial support for the hypothesis that visuomotor interference effects can be reduced when two physically incongruent actions are represented as mechanically interdependent contributions to a joint action goal.
Highlights
Joint actions often require agents to track others’ actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own
We hypothesise that where agents represent their actions as interrelated components of a plan to bring about a joint action goal, each partner’s movements need not always be represented in relation to distinct, incongruent proximal goals
The results from the group which performed the Joint Action Goal Condition last indicate that a joint action goal representation may, as we predicted, reduce visuomotor interference effects arising from the observation of a physically incongruent action
Summary
Joint actions often require agents to track others’ actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own. In a striking illustration of this, Brass et al.[2] found that participants who were instructed to produce finger movements in response to symbolic cues responded more quickly when simultaneously observing irrelevant finger movements that were physically congruent to the ones they were instructed to produce, and more slowly when simultaneously observing irrelevant finger movements that were physically incongruent to these These findings – and others that build on them11–13 – are taken to indicate that, when observing others’ actions, we automatically represent those actions using motor representations of the same type as those subserving action production. This neatly explains why the observation of congruent actions facilitates task performance, while the observation of incongruent actions leads to visuomotor interference effects. This is because many joint actions require individuals to produce physically incongruent yet complementary actions[14]
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