Abstract
Action observation is often conceptualized in a bottom-up manner, where sensory information activates conceptual (or motor) representations. In contrast, here we show that expectations about an actor's goal have a top-down predictive effect on action perception, biasing it toward these goals. In 3 experiments, participants observed hands reach for or withdraw from objects and judged whether a probe stimulus corresponded to the hand's final position. Before action onset, participants generated action expectations on the basis of either object types (safe or painful, Experiments 1 and 2) or abstract color cues (Experiment 3). Participants more readily mistook probes displaced in a predicted position (relative to unpredicted positions) for the hand's final position, and this predictive bias was larger when the movement and expectation were aligned. These effects were evident for low-level movement and high-level goal expectancies. Expectations bias action observation toward the predicted goals. These results challenge current bottom-up views and support recent predictive models of action observation.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-7 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Journal of Experimental Psychology: General |
Volume | 145 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 23 Nov 2015 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2016 |
Bibliographical note
Thanks are extended to Maria-Loredana Filip for help with data collection and Kimberley Schenke and Nick Lange for helpful discussions. The work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council Grant ES/J019178/1.Keywords
- representational momentum
- action prediction
- predictive coding
- mirror neurons
- prediction error
- REPRESENTATIONAL MOMENTUM
- PREDICTION
- PERCEPTION
- SIMULATION
- IMITATION
- NEURONS
- CORTEX
- PAIN