The case for motor involvement in perceiving conspecifics

Margaret Wilson, Günther Knoblich

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Perceiving other people's behaviors activates imitative motor plans in the perceiver, but there is disagreement as to the function of this activation. In contrast to other recent proposals (e.g., that it subserves overt imitation, identification and understanding of actions, or working memory), here it is argued that imitative motor activation feeds back into the perceptual processing of conspecifics' behaviors, generating top-down expectations and predictions of the unfolding action. Furthermore, this account incorporates recent ideas about emulators in the brain-mental simulations that run in parallel to the external events they simulate-to provide a mechanism by which motoric involvement could contribute to perception. Evidence from a variety of literatures is brought to bear to support this account of perceiving human body movement.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)460-473
Number of pages14
JournalPsychological Bulletin
Volume131
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2005
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Emulator
  • Imitation
  • Mirror neurons
  • Prediction
  • Representational momentum

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