Trotter Antony S, Wilt Hannah, Adank Patti
Department of Neuroimaging, King's College London, London, UK.
Department of Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, University College London, 2 Wakefield Street, Chandler House, London, WC1N 1PF, UK.
Psychol Res. 2025 Mar 24;89(2):74. doi: 10.1007/s00426-025-02104-5.
Converging evidence from behavioural, neuroimaging, and neurostimulation studies demonstrates that action observation engages corresponding action production mechanisms, a phenomenon termed covert or automatic imitation. Behaviourally, automatic imitation is measured using the stimulus response compatibility (SRC) task, in which participants produce vocal responses whilst perceiving compatible or incompatible speech distractors. Automatic imitation is measured as the difference in response times (RT) between incompatible and compatible trials. It is unclear if and how social group membership, such as the speaker's sex, affects automatic imitation. Two theoretical accounts make different predictions regarding effects of group membership: the first predicts that automatic imitation can be modulated by group membership, while the second predicts that automatic imitation likely remains unaffected. We tested these predictions for participant sex and distractor sex in an online vocal SRC task. Female and male participants completed an SRC task presenting female or male distractor stimuli. The results show that automatic imitation is not modulated by group membership as signalled by sex. Implications of these results regarding the nature of automatic imitation as a largely stimulus-driven process are considered.
来自行为学、神经影像学和神经刺激研究的越来越多的证据表明，动作观察会激活相应的动作产生机制，这一现象被称为隐蔽或自动模仿。在行为学上，自动模仿通过刺激反应兼容性（SRC）任务来测量，在该任务中，参与者在感知兼容或不兼容的语音干扰项时做出语音反应。自动模仿通过不兼容试验和兼容试验之间的反应时间（RT）差异来衡量。尚不清楚社会群体成员身份，如说话者的性别，是否以及如何影响自动模仿。两种理论解释对群体成员身份的影响做出了不同预测：第一种预测自动模仿可以被群体成员身份调节，而第二种预测自动模仿可能不受影响。我们在一项在线语音SRC任务中针对参与者性别和干扰项性别测试了这些预测。女性和男性参与者完成了一项呈现女性或男性干扰项刺激的SRC任务。结果表明，自动模仿不受性别所表明的群体成员身份的调节。考虑了这些结果对自动模仿本质上是一个主要由刺激驱动的过程的影响。
