Minimizing motor mimicry by myself: Self-focus enhances online action-control mechanisms during motor contagion |
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| Authors: | Stephanie Spengler Marcel Brass Simone Kühn Simone Schütz-Bosbach |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, University of California, Los Angeles, USA;2. Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, University of California, Los Angeles, USA;3. Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles, USA;4. Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
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| Abstract: | Ideomotor theory of human action control proposes that activation of a motor representation can occur either through internally-intended or externally-perceived actions. Critically, sometimes these alternatives of eliciting a motor response may be conflicting, for example, when intending one action and perceiving another, necessitating the recruitment of enhanced action-control to avoid motor mimicry. Based on previous neuroimaging evidence, suggesting that reduced mimicry is associated with self-related processing, we aimed to experimentally enhance these action-control mechanisms during motor contagion by inducing self-focus. In two within-subjects experiments, participants had to enforce their action intention against an external motor contagion tendency under heightened and normal self-focus. During high self-focus participants showed reduced motor mimicry, induced either by mirror self-observation or self-referential judgments. This indicates that a self-focus provoking situation can enhance online action-control mechanisms, needed to resist unintentional motor contagion tendencies and thereby enables a modulation of automatic mirroring responses. |
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