Wired actions: Anticipatory kinematic interference during a dyadic sequential motor interaction task

The anticipation of other people's movements activates our motor system. Does this motor activation affect our own movement unfolding? We investigated whether performing a movement before the other might elicit a motor interference effect, similar to the one that occurs during action observation. Pairs of participants performed a sequential motor task together. While the first agent's task was kept constant throughout the entire experiment, the actions of the second agent varied depending on the size and the position of his or her target. Results showed that the movement kinematics of the first agent were influenced by the anticipation of the subsequent action of the second agent. Furthermore, we found a high kinematic similarity between agents that were part of the same pair, compared to that of artificial pairs created after data collection. These findings suggest that, during dyadic interactions, our motor behavior is influenced not only by what action our partner will perform, but also by how our partner will perform that action. The specificity of this kinematic interference may arise from a detailed, predictive representation of the other's action, which could be refined, through time and practice, during the course of the interaction. These novel findings further the investigation about the processes that underlie our everyday motor interactions, as they suggest that the motor system is highly permeable to others' movements. Such permeability may not only be due to a passive reaction to the others' movements, but also to an active prediction of the others' specific way of moving. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).