Clever chameleon: the influence of action observation on action execution

Marcel Brass

Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium

Almost 15 years ago first behavioural studies demonstrated that the observation of an action leads to an automatic activation of a corresponding motor representation in the observer. Ever since, numerous behavioural studies have investigated ‘automatic imitation’ using interference tasks and social imitation tasks. In my talk, I will first outline different theoretical accounts of automatic imitation. Then I will report research investigating the conditions under which automatic imitation occurs. Finally, I will report recent studies addressing the question whether we can represent multiple actions/agents in parallel and whether automatic imitation is anticipatory by nature.