Catmur Caroline
University of Surrey.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2016 Apr;42(4):530-9. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000166. Epub 2015 Nov 16.
Imitation involves matching the visual representation of another's action onto the observer's own motor program for that action. However, there has been some debate regarding the extent to which imitation is "automatic"-that is, occurs without attention. Participants performed a perceptual load task in which images of finger movements were presented as distractors. Responses to target letter stimuli were performed via finger movements that could be imitatively compatible (requiring the same finger movement) or incompatible with the distractor movements: In this common stimulus-response compatibility manipulation, the stimulus set comprises images of the response movements, producing an imitative compatibility effect. Attention to the distractor movements was manipulated by altering perceptual load through increasing the number of nontarget letter stimuli. If imitation requires attention, then at high perceptual load, imitative compatibility should not affect response times. In contrast, imitative compatibility influenced response times at high perceptual load, demonstrating that distractor movements were processed. However, the compatibility effect was reversed, suggesting that longer response times at high perceptual load tap into an inhibitory stage of distractor movement processing. A follow-up experiment manipulating temporal delay between targets and distractor movements supported this explanation. Further experiments confirmed that nonmovement distractor stimuli in the same configuration produced standard perceptual load effects and that results were not solely due to effector compatibility. These data suggest that imitation can occur without attention. (PsycINFO Database Record
模仿涉及将他人动作的视觉表象与观察者自身执行该动作的运动程序进行匹配。然而，关于模仿在多大程度上是“自动的”——即无需注意力参与就会发生，一直存在一些争论。参与者执行了一项知觉负荷任务，其中手指运动的图像作为干扰物呈现。对目标字母刺激的反应通过手指运动来完成，这些手指运动可能与干扰物运动具有模仿兼容性（需要相同的手指运动）或不兼容：在这种常见的刺激 - 反应兼容性操作中，刺激集包括反应运动的图像，从而产生模仿兼容性效应。通过增加非目标字母刺激的数量来改变知觉负荷，从而操纵对干扰物运动的注意力。如果模仿需要注意力，那么在高知觉负荷下，模仿兼容性不应影响反应时间。相反，在高知觉负荷下，模仿兼容性影响了反应时间，这表明干扰物运动得到了处理。然而，兼容性效应发生了反转，这表明在高知觉负荷下更长的反应时间进入了干扰物运动处理的抑制阶段。一项操纵目标与干扰物运动之间时间延迟的后续实验支持了这一解释。进一步的实验证实，相同配置的非运动干扰物刺激产生了标准的知觉负荷效应，并且结果并非仅仅由于效应器兼容性。这些数据表明，模仿可以在无需注意力的情况下发生。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》
