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And yet they act together: Interpersonal perception modulates visuo-motor interference and mutual adjustments during a joint-grasping task

Sacheli, Lucia Maria; Candidi, Matteo; Pavone, Enea Francesco; Tidoni, Emmanuele; Aglioti, Salvatore Maria

Authors

Lucia Maria Sacheli

Matteo Candidi

Enea Francesco Pavone

Emmanuele Tidoni

Salvatore Maria Aglioti



Abstract

Prediction of “when” a partner will act and “what” he is going to do is crucial in joint-action contexts. However, studies on face-to-face interactions in which two people have to mutually adjust their movements in time and space are lacking. Moreover, while studies on passive observation have shown that somato-motor simulative processes are disrupted when the observed actor is perceived as an out-group or unfair individual, the impact of interpersonal perception on joint-actions has never been directly addressed. Here we explored this issue by comparing the ability of pairs of participants who did or did not undergo an interpersonal perception manipulation procedure to synchronise their reach-to-grasp movements during: i) a guided interaction, requiring pure temporal reciprocal coordination, and ii) a free interaction, requiring both time and space adjustments. Behavioural results demonstrate that while in neutral situations free and guided interactions are equally challenging for participants, a negative interpersonal relationship improves performance in guided interactions at the expense of the free interactive ones. This was paralleled at the kinematic level by the absence of movement corrections and by low movement variability in these participants, indicating that partners cooperating within a negative interpersonal bond executed the cooperative task on their own, without reciprocally adapting to the partner's motor behaviour. Crucially, participants' performance in the free interaction improved in the manipulated group during the second experimental session while partners became interdependent as suggested by higher movement variability and by the appearance of interference between the self-executed actions and those observed in the partner. Our study expands current knowledge about on-line motor interactions by showing that visuo-motor interference effects, mutual motor adjustments and motor-learning mechanisms are influenced by social perception.

Citation

Sacheli, L. M., Candidi, M., Pavone, E. F., Tidoni, E., & Aglioti, S. M. (2012). And yet they act together: Interpersonal perception modulates visuo-motor interference and mutual adjustments during a joint-grasping task. PLoS ONE, 7(11), e50223. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050223

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 22, 2012
Online Publication Date Nov 28, 2012
Publication Date Nov 28, 2012
Deposit Date Mar 23, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal PLoS ONE
Print ISSN 1932-6203
Electronic ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 7
Issue 11
Pages e50223
DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050223
Keywords General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; General Agricultural and Biological Sciences; General Medicine
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/1419039
Publisher URL https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0050223

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Copyright Statement
Copyright: © 2012 Sacheli et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.





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