Imitation of lateralised body movements: Doing it the hard way

Abstract

Two experiments examined imitation of lateralised body movement sequences presented at six viewing angles (0°, 60°, 120°, 180°, 240°, and 300° rotation relative to the participant's body). Experiment 1 found that, when participants were instructed simply to “do what the model does”, at all viewing angles they produced more actions using the same side of the body as the model (anatomical matches), than actions using the opposite side (anatomical non-matches). In Experiment 2 participants were instructed to produce either anatomical matches or anatomical non-matches of observed actions. When the model was viewed from behind (0°), the anatomically matching group were more accurate than the anatomically non-matching group, but the non-matching group was superior when the model faced the participant (180° and 240°). No reliable differences were observed between groups at 60°, 120°, and 300°. In combination, the results of Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that, when they are confronting a model, people choose to imitate the hard way; they attempt to match observed actions anatomically, in spite of the fact that anatomical matching is more subject to error than anatomical non-matching.

Keywords:

• Imitation
• Action observation
• Stimulus–response compatibility
• Spatial compatibility
• Mirror system
• Mirror neuron

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) Research Centre on Economic Learning and Social Evolution. We are grateful to John McCarthy, Lucinda Donaldson, Jennifer Lyons, Arash Molaie, and Freya Richardson for assistance in running the experiments.