Thomas Richard, Sink Jill, Haggard Patrick
Psychology Department, St Mary's University College, <location>London, UK</location>
Exp Psychol. 2013;60(5):335-46. doi: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000203.
Recent neurophysiological and behavioral studies suggest that the brain simulates the sensorimotor processing of observed actions. The relative contributions of sensory and motor simulation in this process remain unclear. Here, we use the well-established phenomenon of sensorimotor gating as a hallmark of motor representation. Perceived intensities of external stimuli are routinely suppressed during motor preparation and execution. Therefore, motor simulation should result in reduced perceptual intensity of sensory stimuli delivered during action observation. We obtained magnitude estimates for vibrotactile stimulation of the upper lip during observation of silent speech (lip-reading). Perceptual enhancement was consistently found across three experiments. The effect appeared to be specific to the observed action, somatotopically organized, and distinct from general attentional and response biases. We conclude that action observation produces perceptual enhancement. The experience of observing others' actions may be driven more by sensory simulation than by motor simulation.
近期的神经生理学和行为学研究表明，大脑会模拟观察到的动作的感觉运动处理过程。在此过程中，感觉模拟和运动模拟的相对贡献仍不明确。在这里，我们使用已确立的感觉运动门控现象作为运动表征的标志。在运动准备和执行过程中，外部刺激的感知强度通常会受到抑制。因此，运动模拟应会导致在动作观察期间传递的感觉刺激的感知强度降低。我们在无声言语（唇读）观察期间获得了对上唇振动触觉刺激的大小估计。在三个实验中均一致发现了感知增强。这种效应似乎特定于观察到的动作，具有躯体定位组织，并且不同于一般的注意力和反应偏差。我们得出结论，动作观察会产生感知增强。观察他人动作的体验可能更多地由感觉模拟而非运动模拟驱动。
