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. 2007 Apr;178(4):509-17.
doi: 10.1007/s00221-006-0756-4. Epub 2006 Nov 8.

Focusing on body sites: the role of spatial attention in action perception

Patric Bach  1 , Nicholas A Peatfield, Steven P Tipper
Affiliations

Focusing on body sites: the role of spatial attention in action perception

Patric Bach et al. Exp Brain Res. 2007 Apr.

Abstract

Humans use the same representations to code self-produced and observed actions. Neurophysiological evidence for this view comes from the discovery of the so-called mirror neurons in premotor cortex of the macaque monkey. These neurons respond when the monkey performs a particular action but also when it observes the same behavior in another individual. In humans, such direct links between perception and action seem to mediate action priming, where a response is facilitated when a similar action is observed. An issue that has not been fully resolved concerns the role of selective attention in these processes. Action priming appears to be an automatic process in the sense that the observed action can be irrelevant to the observer's task and nevertheless prime similar responses. However, it is not known whether attention has to be oriented to the action for these processes to be engaged. It is demonstrated here that spatial attention indeed has to be oriented to the action related body site for action priming to take place. Furthermore, if attention is oriented to the appropriate body site, there need be no visual cues to action for action priming to emerge.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Examples of the stimuli used in the experiments. The upper panel shows the images presented in Experiment 1 depicting the actions of kicking a soccer ball and typing on a keyboard, with the colored targets superimposed either over the limb involved in the action or on the person’s head. The lower panel shows the stimuli presented in Experiment 2 with the same person in situations where he is not acting and where no target objects implying action were visible. Again, colored targets were superimposed either over the head or the limbs of the person
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The vision-action-compatibility effects obtained in Experiment 1 (action perception) for RTs (upper panel) and error rates (lower panel)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The vision-action-compatibility effects obtained in Experiment 2 (viewing resting body sites) for RTs (upper panel) and error rates (lower panel)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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