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Related Experiment Videos

Experience modulates automatic imitation.

Cecilia Heyes1, Geoffrey Bird, Helen Johnson

  • 1Department of Psychology and Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom. c.heyes@ucl.ac.uk

Brain Research. Cognitive Brain Research
|January 18, 2005
PubMed
Summary
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Action observation activates motor cortex areas. This automatic imitation effect, previously thought innate, can be abolished by training, suggesting visual-motor connections form through experience.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Motor Control

Background:

  • Action observation activates premotor and primary motor cortices.
  • This activation is hypothesized to depend on visual-motor connections formed through experience.
  • Previous studies show action observation facilitates congruent movements.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test if action observation-induced motor cortex activation relies on experience-based visual-motor connections.
  • To investigate the role of correlated experience in automatic imitation.
  • To determine if automatic imitation is innate or learned.

Main Methods:

  • Experiment 1: Replicated facilitation of congruent movements using a reaction time (RT) procedure with orthogonal stimulus-response (SR) movements.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Experiment 2: Introduced training to create incongruent stimulus-response mappings (e.g., observe opening, respond by closing).
  • Measured reaction times and analyzed imitation effects.

    • Main Results:

    • Experiment 1 confirmed automatic imitation: observing a movement facilitated performing a similar movement, independent of explicit instructions.
    • Experiment 2 demonstrated that this automatic imitation effect was abolished after training with incongruent stimulus-response associations.
    • This indicates that the visual-motor connections are not fixed but malleable.

    Conclusions:

    • The automatic imitation effect, or action observation-induced motor activation, is not innate.
    • Cortical connections mediating motor activation by action observation are established and modified through experience.
    • This highlights the plasticity of sensorimotor systems in response to environmental interactions.