Department of Psychology, Center for Cognitive Science, University of Turin, Turin, Italy.
PLoS One. 2011 Jan 26;6(1):e14594. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0014594.
In the context of interacting activities requiring close-body contact such as fighting or dancing, the actions of one agent can be used to predict the actions of the second agent. In the present study, we investigated whether interpersonal predictive coding extends to interactive activities--such as communicative interactions--in which no physical contingency is implied between the movements of the interacting individuals.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Participants observed point-light displays of two agents (A and B) performing separate actions. In the communicative condition, the action performed by agent B responded to a communicative gesture performed by agent A. In the individual condition, agent A's communicative action was substituted with a non-communicative action. Using a simultaneous masking detection task, we demonstrate that observing the communicative gesture performed by agent A enhanced visual discrimination of agent B.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our finding complements and extends previous evidence for interpersonal predictive coding, suggesting that the communicative gestures of one agent can serve as a predictor for the expected actions of the respondent, even if no physical contact between agents is implied.
在需要近距离身体接触的互动活动中，如战斗或跳舞，一个主体的动作可以用来预测第二个主体的动作。在本研究中，我们调查了人际预测编码是否延伸到互动活动中，如交际互动，在这些活动中，没有暗示互动个体之间的动作有物理关联。
方法/主要发现：参与者观察到两个主体（A 和 B）执行单独动作的点光显示。在交际条件下，主体 B 执行的动作响应主体 A 执行的交际手势。在个体条件下，主体 A 的交际动作被非交际动作所取代。使用同时掩蔽检测任务，我们证明观察主体 A 执行的交际手势增强了对主体 B 的视觉辨别能力。
结论/意义：我们的发现补充和扩展了人际预测编码的先前证据，表明一个主体的交际手势可以作为对被试预期动作的预测器，即使主体之间没有物理接触。
