Article

Favouritism in the motor system: Social interaction modulates action simulation

Details

Citation

Kourtis D, Sebanz N & Knoblich G (2010) Favouritism in the motor system: Social interaction modulates action simulation. Biology Letters, 6 (6), pp. 758-761. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2010.0478

Abstract
The ability to anticipate others' actions is crucial for social interaction. It has been shown that this ability relies on motor areas of the human brain that are not only active during action execution and action observation, but also during anticipation of another person's action. Recording electroencephalograms during a triadic social interaction, we assessed whether activation of motor areas pertaining to the human mirrorneuron system prior to action observation depends on the social relationship between the actor and the observer. Anticipatory motor activation was stronger when participants expected an interaction partner to perform a particular action than when they anticipated that the same action would be performed by a third person they did not interact with. These results demonstrate that social interaction modulates action simulation.

Keywords
Action simulation; motor system; social interaction; EEG; favouritism;

Journal
Biology Letters: Volume 6, Issue 6

StatusPublished
Publication date23/12/2010
Publication date online23/06/2010
Date accepted by journal01/06/2010
URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1893/28124
PublisherThe Royal Society

People (1)

People

Dr Dimitrios Kourtis

Dr Dimitrios Kourtis

Lecturer, Psychology