Complementary Hand Responses Occur in Both Peri- and Extrapersonal Space

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Social Cognition

Background:

• Humans exhibit automatic imitation of observed actions, often through mirror-congruent movements.
• Many actions afford complementary, rather than mirror-congruent, responses, especially those requiring interaction.
• Previous motor priming studies often lacked contextual information, limiting understanding of interaction-dependent responses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the automatic tendency for complementary actions versus mirrored actions.
• To examine if perceived interpersonal distance influences complementary action responses.
• To assess the role of context and interaction in motor priming.

Main Methods:

• Participants mirrored or complemented hand gestures (fist or open hand) from a depicted actor.
• The actor was presented either within or outside of reach, manipulating perceived interpersonal distance.
• Reaction times and response errors were measured across three studies.

Main Results:

• Complementary hand movements showed faster reaction times and fewer errors compared to mirrored movements for open hand gestures.
• This complementary effect persisted regardless of the actor's perceived distance.
• The findings were not explained by simple spatial cueing effects.

Conclusions:

• Humans possess a robust, automatic tendency to perform complementary actions.
• Perceived interpersonal distance has limited influence on this complementary action tendency.
• Motor priming effects and affordance perception are constrained by contextual and interactional factors.