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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 9, 2026

Corticospinal Excitability Modulation During Action Observation

Corticospinal Excitability Modulation During Action Observation

Published on: December 31, 2013

Automatic imitation of intransitive actions.

Clare Press¹, Geoffrey Bird, Eamonn Walsh

¹Department of Psychology, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP, UK. c.press@ucl.ac.uk

Brain and Cognition

|December 14, 2007

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Humans automatically imitate intransitive actions, like hand movements, suggesting a difference in mirror systems between humans and monkeys. This finding supports the idea that human mirror systems process more than just object-directed actions.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Comparative Psychology

Background:

A potential difference exists in mirror systems between monkeys and humans.
Monkey mirror systems appear to process only object-directed (transitive) actions.
Human mirror systems may also process non-object-directed (intransitive) actions.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the discontinuity in mirror system processing between humans and monkeys.
To find evidence for automatic imitation of intransitive actions in humans.
To determine if human mirror systems process intransitive actions.

Main Methods:

A simple reaction time (RT) stimulus-response compatibility paradigm was employed.
Intransitive actions (hand opening/closing) were used to test for automatic imitation.
Spatial compatibility was controlled and isolated to specifically measure action compatibility effects.

Main Results:

Action-compatible responses were consistently faster than action-incompatible responses.
No significant effects of spatial compatibility were observed across conditions.
Evidence for automatic imitation of intransitive actions was demonstrated.

Conclusions:

The human capacity for automatic imitation extends to intransitive actions.
This provides support for a difference between human and monkey mirror system processing.
Human mirror systems likely process a broader range of actions than previously thought.