Anticipating action effects with different attention foci is reflected in brain activation

Anticipation is informed by experience. Having focused on action effects in the past will lead to differences when the focus is now on the effector. Boules-type throwing movements were presented as point-light displays of shoulder and arm-markers. Activation in motor-related areas measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging was compared between two tasks: Task A anticipating action effects and Task B judging the velocity of the hand marker. One group of participants performed a session of Task A followed by a session of Task B; the other group started with Task B followed by Task A. The group starting with Task A exhibited higher brain activation during Task A bilaterally in intraparietal areas and in right hemispheric frontal and premotor areas. These areas are known to be involved in effect estimation and action simulation. The second group showed higher activation during Task B in premotor cortex and human intraparietal area 3 of the right hemisphere. The results suggest that the instruction to focus on anticipating action effects facilitates the recruitment of core components of the simulation network during anticipation and when effect anticipation is not the primary intention.