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Biomedical subjects

Natalie Sebanz

Publications and source records attributed to Natalie Sebanz.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Joint action: bodies and minds moving together.

The ability to coordinate our actions with those of others is crucial for our success as individuals and as a species. Progress in understanding the cognitive and neural processes involved in joint action has been slow and sparse, because cognitive neuroscientists have predominantly studied individual minds and brains in isolation. However, in recent years, major advances have been made by investigating perception and action in social context. In this article we outline how studies on joint attention, action observation, task sharing, action coordination and agency contribute to the understanding of the cognitive and neural processes supporting joint action. Several mechanisms are proposed that allow individuals to share representations, to predict actions, and to integrate predicted effects of own and others' actions.

Attention↗
PubMed2006

Twin peaks: an ERP study of action planning and control in co-acting individuals.

Previous studies have shown that perceiving another's actions activates corresponding representations in an observer's action system. The present study investigated how performing a task with another person affects action planning and control. Reaction times (RTs) and event-related potentials were measured while participants performed a go/no-go task alone and with another person. Three effects of acting together were observed. First, RTs were slowed when individuals had to respond to a stimulus referring to the other's action, suggesting that an action selection conflict occurred. Second, at frontal sites, a stimulus referring to the other's action elicited a similar electrophysiological response as a stimulus referring to one's own action. Finally, on no-go trials, P300 amplitude was significantly larger in a group setting, indicating that an action was suppressed. These findings provide evidence that individuals acting in a social context form shared action representations.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Agency in the face of error.

Experiencing oneself as the cause of an action is a fundamental building block for a sense of self. A recent study by Sato and Yasuda provides evidence that motor prediction contributes to the experience of agency. Their findings demonstrate that agency is experienced not only for intended, but also for erroneous, unintended actions. This extends our knowledge on the phenomenology of action, and raises questions about the relation between explicit reports and agency-related changes in sensation and perception.

Awareness↗
PubMed2005

How two share a task: corepresenting stimulus-response mappings.

Previous research has shown that individuals unintentionally adjust their behavior to others by mimicking others' actions and by synchronizing their actions with others. This study investigated whether individuals form a representation of a coactor's task when the context does not require interpersonal coordination. Pairs of participants performed a reaction time (RT) task alongside each other, responding to 2 different dimensions of the same stimulus. Results showed that each actor's performance was influenced by the other's task. RTs on trials that required a response from both participants were slowed compared with trials that required only a response from 1 actor. Similar results were observed when each participant knew the other's task but could not observe the other's actions. These findings provide evidence that shared task representations are formed in social settings that do not require interpersonal coordination and emerge as a consequence of how a social situation is conceptualized.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Representing others' actions: just like one's own?

Previous research has shown that observing others' actions can affect individual performance of the same actions. In the present study, we developed a new paradigm to investigate whether and how complementary actions at the disposal of another agent are represented and influence one's own actions. A spatial compatibility task was distributed among two people so that each participant took care of one of two responses. The identical task was performed alone and alongside another participant. There was a spatial compatibility effect in the group setting only. It was similar to the effect obtained when one person took care of both responses. This result suggests that one's own actions and others' actions are represented in a functionally equivalent way.

Adolescent↗