The Things You Do: Internal Models of Others’ Expected Behaviour Guide Action Observation

Schenke, Kimberley Caroline; Wyer, Natalie A.; Bach, Patric

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158910

Cited by 18 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…Two of our recent studies attempted to fill this gap. We showed, first, that people form internal models how others' behave in different circumstances (whether they tend to kick a ball but turn away from a computer, or vice versa) and that these models are reactivated whenever these individuals are seen, speeding up the identification of person‐consistent actions (Schenke, Wyer, & Bach, ). Second, we showed that such predictions can even affect the involuntary sharing of attention with others (i.e., joint attention).…”

Section: Person Models As a Source And Target Of Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictive social perception: Towards a unifying framework from action observation to person knowledge

Bach

Schenke

2017

Social & Personality Psych

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Action observation is central to human social interaction.It allows people to derive what mental states drive others' behaviour and coordinate (and compete) effectively with them. Although previous accounts have conceptualised this ability in terms of bottom-up (motoric or conceptual) matching processes, more recent evidence suggests that such mechanisms cannot account for the complexity and uncertainty of the sensory input, even in cases where computations should be much simpler (i.e., low-level vision). It has therefore been argued that perception in general, and social perception in particular, is better described as a process of top-down hypothesis testing. In such models, any assumption about others-their goals, attitudes, and beliefs-is translated into predictions of expected sensory input and compared with incoming stimulation. This allows perception and action to be based on these expectations or-in case of a mismatch-for one's prior assumptions to be revised until they are better aligned with the individual's behaviour. This article will give a (selective) review of recent research from experimental psychology and (social) neuroscience that supports such views, discuss the relevant underlying models, and current gaps in research. In particular, it will argue that much headway can be made when current research on predictive social perception is integrated with classic findings from social psychology, which have already shown striking effects of prior knowledge on the processing of other people's behaviour. | INTRODUCTIONUnderstanding other people's behaviour is central to human social interaction. It allows people to derive the goals, attitudes, and beliefs guiding others' actions (Hamilton, 2009), learn which outcomes these actions will produce (Ikegami & Ganesh, 2014;Knoblich & Flach, 2001), and respond appropriately to them, often in an anticipatory manner (e.g., in joint action, Sebanz, Bekkering, & Knoblich, 2006;Sebanz & Knoblich, 2009 Since the discovery of mirror neurons (Di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Gallese, & Rizzolatti, 1992;Fogassi et al., 2005; in humans, see Mukamel, Ekstrom, Kaplan, Iacoboni, & Fried, 2010;Oosterhof, Tipper, & Downing, 2013), action understanding has typically been conceptualised as a bottom-up process. Observed actions-typically conceptualised as simple goaldirected behaviours such as reaching and grasping or simple object use-are first represented in perceptual structures of the brain, then "directly matched" against actions the observer could carry out themselves, which then activates goals and other states associated with the action, allowing it to be understood without "inferential processing" or "backwards projections" (e.g., Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2010;Rizzolatti, Cattaneo, Fabbri-Destro & Rozzi, 2014). These ideas have been widely successful and led to the characterisation of the motor system as a "tuning fork," which passively "resonates" with observed actions (for discussion, see Uithol, van Rooij, Bekkering, & Haselager, 2011;Jacob, 2008), or fo...

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Section: Person Models As a Source And Target Of Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictive social perception: Towards a unifying framework from action observation to person knowledge

Bach

Schenke

2017

Social & Personality Psych

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“…As soon as such models are established, they provide information about which actions will be carried out when they are re-encountered in this situation. Consistent with such views, recent studies have shown, for example, that people's attention is automatically biased towards which object someone is expected to look at based on their past history (rather than where they are actually looking; Joyce, Schenke, Bayliss, & Bach, 2015), that people are faster in identifying an action that is typically carried out by one person in a given situation, compared to an action that is typically carried out by someone else (Schenke et al, 2016), and that people learn an individual's idiosyncratic "tells" to predict their actions in gambling (Heerey & Velani, 2010).…”

Section: Predictive Person-models Elicit Motor Biases: the Face-inhibmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…The observed modulation of the observer's motor system is consistent with our proposal that person identification draws upon person-models that include not only information about these individual's visual features (e.g., face shape, complexion, etc. ), or known traits (Macrae, Quinn, Mason, & Quadflieg, 2005;Quinn, Mason, & Macrae, 2009;Quinn, Mason, & Macrae, 2010), but also information about their typical behaviour (Schenke et al, 2016;Joyce et al, 2015; for theoretical arguments, see Bach & Schenke, 2017;Barressi & Moore, 1996). These actions are derived spontaneously when these athletes are seen and modulate the observer's motor system, such that prediction failuresseeing an athlete not carry out their expected actionimpairs the use of the relevant body part in the observer (Bach et al, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In such predictive processing models, the robust motor activation during action observation reflects not a bottom-up matching of observed behaviour to own motor representations, but instead the attempt to predict an action so that it can be matched to what was observed (e.g., Hickok, 2009;Kilner et al, 2007;Csibra, 2008;Bach, Nicholson & Hudson, 2014). Recent studies provide direct evidence for such predictions, showing, for example, that attributing goals to others induces predictive perceptual biases in action identification and perceptual judgments (Hudson et al, 2016 ab ;, 2018McDonough, Hudson, & Bach, 2019;Schenke et al, 2016; see Bach & Schenke, 2017, for a review). In addition, there is evidence that motor activation during action observation anticipates forthcoming actions (Avenanti, Annella, Candidi, Urgesi, & Aglioti, 2013), that mirror neurons predictively code others' actions (Maranesi, Livi, Fogassi, Rizzolatti, & Bonini, 2014;Urgesi et al, 2010), that the motor activation associated with an observed action reflects its (inferred) goal rather than the actual motor behaviour (Liepelt et al, 2009), or that motor activations are strongest for actions appropriate for goal achievement (e.g., Bach, Bayliss & Tipper, 2011).…”

Section: Predictive Person-models Elicit Motor Biases: the Face-inhibmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We and others have argued that next to the overt social cuesnearby objects, facial expressions or overt statementsinvestigated in most prior research (e.g., Bach, Nicholson & Hudson, 2014;Adams, Ambady, Macrae, & Kleck, 2006;Bach et al, 2011;Hudson, Nicholson, Ellis, & Bach, 2016;Hudson, Nicholson, Ellis, 15/07/201912:26 & Bach, 2015Hunnius & Bekkering, 2010;Johnston, Miles, & Macrae, 2010;Pierno et al, 2006;Stapel, Hunnius, & Bekkering, 2012), the identity of the actors themselves is an important contributor (Bach & Schenke, 2017;Barresi & Moore, 1996;Newen, 2015). It has been argued that humans form sophisticated internal models of how other people behave in different situations, such as which toy our child typically picks, or which wine our spouse prefers (e.g., Schenke et al, 2016;Monroy, Meyer, Gerson & Hunnius, 2017;Buchsbaum, Gopnik, Griffiths, & Shafto, 2011). As soon as such models are established, they provide information about which actions will be carried out when they are re-encountered in this situation.…”

Section: Predictive Person-models Elicit Motor Biases: the Face-inhibmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Predictive person models elicit motor biases: the face-inhibition effect revisited

Schenke¹,

Wyer²,

Tipper³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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We adapted an established paradigm (Bach & Tipper, 2007; Tipper & Bach, 2010) to test whether people derive motoric predictions about an actor's forthcoming actions from both prior knowledge about them, and the context in which they are seen. In two experiments, participants identified famous tennis and soccer players with either hand or foot responses, while these athletes were seen either carrying out or not carrying out their typical actions, in contexts in which these actions are typically seen (soccer field, tennis court) or outside these contexts (beach, awards ceremony). Identifying not-acting athletes revealed the expected negative compatibility effects, such that viewing a tennis player led to faster responses with a foot than a hand, and vice versa for a soccer player. In line with the idea that these negative compatibility effects reflect the absence of a predicted action, these effects were eliminated (or turned into positive compatibility effects), when the athletes were seen carrying out their expected actions. Strikingly, however, these motoric biases were independent of the context in which the athletes were seen, and were, if anything, more robust in the out-of-context trials, even if the context was made salient (Experiment 2). These results confirm that people hold motoric knowledge about the actions that others typically carry out and that these actions are part of their perceptual representations, which are accessed when they are re-encountered, possibly in order to resolve uncertainty in person perception.

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Timing of grip and goal activation during action perception: a priming study

Decroix

Kalénine

2018

Exp Brain Res

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Several models of action recognition acknowledge the involvement of distinct grip and goal representations in the processing of others' actions. Yet, their functional role and temporal organization are still debated. The present priming study aimed at evaluating the relative timing of grip and goal activation during the processing of photographs of object-directed actions. Action could be correct or incorrect owing to grip and/or goal violations. Twenty-eight (Experiment 1) and 25 (Experiment 2) healthy adults judged the correctness of target actions according to object typical use. Target pictures were primed by action pictures sharing the same grip or same goal, both the same grip and same goal or none. Primes were presented for 66 or 300 ms in Experiment 1 and for 120 or 220 ms in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, facilitative priming effects were observed for goal and grip similarity after 300 ms primes but only for goal after 66 ms primes. In Experiment 2, facilitative priming effects were found for both goal and grip similarity from 120 ms of prime processing. In addition, results from a control condition in Experiment 2 indicated that mere object priming could partially account for goal similarity priming effects, suggesting that object identity may help the observer to make predictions about possible action goals. Findings demonstrate an early and first activation of goal representations, as compared to grip representations, in action decoding, consistent with predictive accounts of action understanding. Future studies should determine to what extent the timing of grip and goal activation is context-sensitive.

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The Things You Do: Internal Models of Others’ Expected Behaviour Guide Action Observation

Cited by 18 publications

References 98 publications

Predictive social perception: Towards a unifying framework from action observation to person knowledge

Predictive social perception: Towards a unifying framework from action observation to person knowledge

Predictive person models elicit motor biases: the face-inhibition effect revisited

Timing of grip and goal activation during action perception: a priming study

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