Automatic imitation? Imitative compatibility affects responses at high perceptual load.
Open accessAbstract
Imitation involves matching the visual representation of another's action onto the observer's own motor program for that action. However, there has been some debate regarding the extent to which imitation is "automatic"-that is, occurs without attention. Participants performed a perceptual load task in which images of finger movements were presented as distractors. Responses to target letter stimuli were performed via finger movements that could be imitatively compatible (requiring the same finger movement) or incompatible with the distractor movements: In this common stimulus-response compatibility manipulation, the stimulus set comprises images of the response movements, producing an imitative compatibility effect. Attention to the distractor movements was manipulated by altering perceptual load through increasing the number of nontarget letter stimuli. If imitation requires attention, then at high perceptual load, imitative compatibility should not affect response times. In contrast, imitative compatibility influenced response times at high perceptual load, demonstrating that distractor movements were processed. However, the compatibility effect was reversed, suggesting that longer response times at high perceptual load tap into an inhibitory stage of distractor movement processing. A follow-up experiment manipulating temporal delay between targets and distractor movements supported this explanation. Further experiments confirmed that nonmovement distractor stimuli in the same configuration produced standard perceptual load effects and that results were not solely due to effector compatibility. These data suggest that imitation can occur without attention. (PsycINFO Database Record
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“Although there is no doubt that human imitative behavior has an automatic aspect (Blakemore & Frith, 2005; Brass et al., 2000; Catmur, 2016; Pan & Hamilton, 2015; Stürmer et al., 2000), or that the automatic imitation is mediated by the human MNS (Heyes, 2011), we do not always imitate the observed…”
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Ramsey_imitaton_load_preprintPreprint
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Automatic Imitation in School-Aged ChildrenPreprint
Wermelinger, S., Mörsdorf, L., & Daum, M. M. (2023) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/s37uh
Assessing the Automaticity of “Automatic Imitation”: Are Imitative Behaviours Efficient?Preprint
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- Authors
- Catmur, C.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Catmur, Caroline
- ORCID
- Catmur, Caroline
- Venue
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
- Published
- 2016
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 530-539
- ISSN
- 0096-1523 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1277
- OpenAlex
- W2213381091
- Semantic Scholar
- 9aa69c555487835c5d6e49ad6106afe8104c6ef9
- Cited by
- 30
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 7.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- kclpure.kcl.ac.uk
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Surrey Research Insight Open Access (The University of Surrey) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/K00140X/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- imitation, automaticity, perceptual load, stimulus-response compatibility, distractor processing, attention, finger movement, response inhibition
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Attention, Female, Fingers, Humans, Imitative Behavior, Male, Movement
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