I act, hear and see, but is it really me? Cross-modal effects in the perception of biological motion

Vassilis Sevdalis, Peter Keller
Poster
Last modified: 2008-05-13

Abstract


Embodied experience affords essential information for action perception. Perception of environmental stimuli and action tendencies towards them are mediated by motor processes. The body acts as a link between perception and action. Intentions, emotions, and mental states are shared and communicated by corporeal movements and can be perceived by the observation of kinematic body cues in point-light displays. Perceptual sensitivity to human bodily movement tends to be higher if the observer is the agent of the action. Observers are able to discriminate between their own and others’ actions when depicted as point-light displays. Such agency effects have been mainly investigated by focusing on either visual or auditory modalities. Nevertheless, the understanding and control of bodily actions requires integration of sensory information from many different channels. Specifically, can auditory cues about bodily actions influence the perception of point-light action patterns? The aim of this study is to investigate self recognition in point-light displays when actions and stimuli are presented in visual or audiovisual modalities. Participants are invited to execute different ecologically valid actions (i.e. dancing to musical stimuli) and subsequently identify the agent (self vs. other) from the point-light displays. Results are discussed in relation to common coding theory and embodied simulation theory.

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