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Social Action Effects: Representing Predicted Partner Responses in Social Interactions
Bence Neszmélyi1, Lisa Weller1, Wilfried Kunde1
1Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
|June 20, 2022
Summary
Human action control may be influenced by social cues. However, research suggests sociomotor representations are surprisingly non-social, lacking unique social features and distinct processing from non-social effects.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Social Psychology
- Motor Control
Background:
- The sociomotor framework proposes that anticipated partner reactions guide human action control.
- Understanding how social context influences action representation and selection is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review studies on the content of social action representations.
- To explore factors distinguishing action control with social versus inanimate effects.
- To test hypotheses on social context influencing effect-based action control.
Main Methods:
- Literature review of empirical studies on sociomotor action control.
- Analysis of factors influencing action effect processing.
- Examination of evidence for social features in action representations.
Main Results:
- Indirect evidence supports social context influencing action control.
- Direct studies show no genuine social features in sociomotor action control.
- Evidence suggests social and non-social action effects are processed similarly.
Conclusions:
- Sociomotor representations appear remarkably non-social.
- The hypothesized influence of social context on action control requires further investigation.
- Future studies should enhance social experience to clarify its role.
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