Imitation or Polarity Correspondence?:  Behavioural and Neurophysiological Evidence for the Confounding Influence of Orthogonal Spatial Compatibility on Measures of Automatic Imitation

Kristína Czekóová; Daniel Joel Shaw; Martin Lamoš; Beáta Špiláková; Miguel Salazar; Milan Brázdil

doi:10.3758/s13415-020-00860-y

Imitation or Polarity Correspondence? Behavioural and Neurophysiological Evidence for the Confounding Influence of Orthogonal Spatial Compatibility on Measures of Automatic Imitation

Kristína Czekóová, Daniel Joel Shaw, Martin Lamoš, Beáta Špiláková, Miguel Salazar, Milan Brázdil

School of Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

During social interactions, humans tend to imitate one another involuntarily. To investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms driving this tendency, researchers often employ stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) tasks to assess the influence that action observation has on action execution. This is referred to as automatic imitation (AI). The stimuli used frequently in SRC procedures to elicit AI often confound action-related with other nonsocial influences on behaviour; however, in response to the rotated hand-action stimuli employed increasingly, AI partly reflects unspecific up-right/down-left biases in stimulus-response mapping. Despite an emerging awareness of this confounding orthogonal spatial-compatibility effect, psychological and neuroscientific research into social behaviour continues to employ these stimuli to investigate AI. To increase recognition of this methodological issue, the present study measured the systematic influence of orthogonal spatial effects on behavioural and neurophysiological measures of AI acquired with rotated hand-action stimuli in SRC tasks. In Experiment 1, behavioural data from a large sample revealed that complex orthogonal spatial effects exert an influence on AI over and above any topographical similarity between observed and executed actions. Experiment 2 reproduced this finding in a more systematic, within-subject design, and high-density electroencephalography revealed that electrocortical expressions of AI elicited also are modulated by orthogonal spatial compatibility. Finally, source localisations identified a collection of cortical areas sensitive to this spatial confound, including nodes of the multiple-demand and semantic-control networks. These results indicate that AI measured on SRC procedures with the rotated hand stimuli used commonly might reflect neurocognitive mechanisms associated with spatial associations rather than imitative tendencies.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	212-230
Number of pages	19
Journal	Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience
Volume	21
Issue number	1
Early online date	12 Jan 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-020-00860-y
Publication status	Published - Feb 2021

Bibliographical note

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Funding: This study has received funding from Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under the Project CEITEC 2020 (LQ1601) and the Czech Science Foundation (grant number: GA15-16738S). The authors acknowledge the core facility MAFIL of CEITEC supported by the MEYS CR (LM2018129 Czech-BioImaging).

Keywords

Automatic imitation
Orthogonal spatial compatibility
Polarity correspondence
Semantic control

Access to Document

10.3758/s13415-020-00860-yLicence: CC BY 3.0

Imitation or Polarity Correspondence?
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 2.16 MBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

Czekóová, K., Shaw, D. J., Lamoš, M., Špiláková, B., Salazar, M., & Brázdil, M. (2021). Imitation or Polarity Correspondence? Behavioural and Neurophysiological Evidence for the Confounding Influence of Orthogonal Spatial Compatibility on Measures of Automatic Imitation. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 21(1), 212-230. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-020-00860-y

@article{8c3e5a3b15f349e7b136ee3269f8ccc5,

title = "Imitation or Polarity Correspondence?: Behavioural and Neurophysiological Evidence for the Confounding Influence of Orthogonal Spatial Compatibility on Measures of Automatic Imitation",

abstract = "During social interactions, humans tend to imitate one another involuntarily. To investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms driving this tendency, researchers often employ stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) tasks to assess the influence that action observation has on action execution. This is referred to as automatic imitation (AI). The stimuli used frequently in SRC procedures to elicit AI often confound action-related with other nonsocial influences on behaviour; however, in response to the rotated hand-action stimuli employed increasingly, AI partly reflects unspecific up-right/down-left biases in stimulus-response mapping. Despite an emerging awareness of this confounding orthogonal spatial-compatibility effect, psychological and neuroscientific research into social behaviour continues to employ these stimuli to investigate AI. To increase recognition of this methodological issue, the present study measured the systematic influence of orthogonal spatial effects on behavioural and neurophysiological measures of AI acquired with rotated hand-action stimuli in SRC tasks. In Experiment 1, behavioural data from a large sample revealed that complex orthogonal spatial effects exert an influence on AI over and above any topographical similarity between observed and executed actions. Experiment 2 reproduced this finding in a more systematic, within-subject design, and high-density electroencephalography revealed that electrocortical expressions of AI elicited also are modulated by orthogonal spatial compatibility. Finally, source localisations identified a collection of cortical areas sensitive to this spatial confound, including nodes of the multiple-demand and semantic-control networks. These results indicate that AI measured on SRC procedures with the rotated hand stimuli used commonly might reflect neurocognitive mechanisms associated with spatial associations rather than imitative tendencies.",

keywords = "Automatic imitation, Orthogonal spatial compatibility, Polarity correspondence, Semantic control",

author = "Krist{\'i}na Czek{\'o}ov{\'a} and Shaw, {Daniel Joel} and Martin Lamo{\v s} and Be{\'a}ta {\v S}pil{\'a}kov{\'a} and Miguel Salazar and Milan Br{\'a}zdil",

note = "This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Funding: This study has received funding from Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under the Project CEITEC 2020 (LQ1601) and the Czech Science Foundation (grant number: GA15-16738S). The authors acknowledge the core facility MAFIL of CEITEC supported by the MEYS CR (LM2018129 Czech-BioImaging).",

year = "2021",

month = feb,

doi = "10.3758/s13415-020-00860-y",

language = "English",

volume = "21",

pages = "212--230",

journal = "Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience",

issn = "1530-7026",

publisher = "Springer",

number = "1",

}

Czekóová, K, Shaw, DJ, Lamoš, M, Špiláková, B, Salazar, M & Brázdil, M 2021, 'Imitation or Polarity Correspondence? Behavioural and Neurophysiological Evidence for the Confounding Influence of Orthogonal Spatial Compatibility on Measures of Automatic Imitation', Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 212-230. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-020-00860-y

Imitation or Polarity Correspondence? Behavioural and Neurophysiological Evidence for the Confounding Influence of Orthogonal Spatial Compatibility on Measures of Automatic Imitation. / Czekóová, Kristína; Shaw, Daniel Joel; Lamoš, Martin et al.
In: Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 21, No. 1, 02.2021, p. 212-230.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

TY - JOUR

T1 - Imitation or Polarity Correspondence?

T2 - Behavioural and Neurophysiological Evidence for the Confounding Influence of Orthogonal Spatial Compatibility on Measures of Automatic Imitation

AU - Czekóová, Kristína

AU - Shaw, Daniel Joel

AU - Lamoš, Martin

AU - Špiláková, Beáta

AU - Salazar, Miguel

AU - Brázdil, Milan

N1 - This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Funding: This study has received funding from Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under the Project CEITEC 2020 (LQ1601) and the Czech Science Foundation (grant number: GA15-16738S). The authors acknowledge the core facility MAFIL of CEITEC supported by the MEYS CR (LM2018129 Czech-BioImaging).

PY - 2021/2

Y1 - 2021/2

N2 - During social interactions, humans tend to imitate one another involuntarily. To investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms driving this tendency, researchers often employ stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) tasks to assess the influence that action observation has on action execution. This is referred to as automatic imitation (AI). The stimuli used frequently in SRC procedures to elicit AI often confound action-related with other nonsocial influences on behaviour; however, in response to the rotated hand-action stimuli employed increasingly, AI partly reflects unspecific up-right/down-left biases in stimulus-response mapping. Despite an emerging awareness of this confounding orthogonal spatial-compatibility effect, psychological and neuroscientific research into social behaviour continues to employ these stimuli to investigate AI. To increase recognition of this methodological issue, the present study measured the systematic influence of orthogonal spatial effects on behavioural and neurophysiological measures of AI acquired with rotated hand-action stimuli in SRC tasks. In Experiment 1, behavioural data from a large sample revealed that complex orthogonal spatial effects exert an influence on AI over and above any topographical similarity between observed and executed actions. Experiment 2 reproduced this finding in a more systematic, within-subject design, and high-density electroencephalography revealed that electrocortical expressions of AI elicited also are modulated by orthogonal spatial compatibility. Finally, source localisations identified a collection of cortical areas sensitive to this spatial confound, including nodes of the multiple-demand and semantic-control networks. These results indicate that AI measured on SRC procedures with the rotated hand stimuli used commonly might reflect neurocognitive mechanisms associated with spatial associations rather than imitative tendencies.

AB - During social interactions, humans tend to imitate one another involuntarily. To investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms driving this tendency, researchers often employ stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) tasks to assess the influence that action observation has on action execution. This is referred to as automatic imitation (AI). The stimuli used frequently in SRC procedures to elicit AI often confound action-related with other nonsocial influences on behaviour; however, in response to the rotated hand-action stimuli employed increasingly, AI partly reflects unspecific up-right/down-left biases in stimulus-response mapping. Despite an emerging awareness of this confounding orthogonal spatial-compatibility effect, psychological and neuroscientific research into social behaviour continues to employ these stimuli to investigate AI. To increase recognition of this methodological issue, the present study measured the systematic influence of orthogonal spatial effects on behavioural and neurophysiological measures of AI acquired with rotated hand-action stimuli in SRC tasks. In Experiment 1, behavioural data from a large sample revealed that complex orthogonal spatial effects exert an influence on AI over and above any topographical similarity between observed and executed actions. Experiment 2 reproduced this finding in a more systematic, within-subject design, and high-density electroencephalography revealed that electrocortical expressions of AI elicited also are modulated by orthogonal spatial compatibility. Finally, source localisations identified a collection of cortical areas sensitive to this spatial confound, including nodes of the multiple-demand and semantic-control networks. These results indicate that AI measured on SRC procedures with the rotated hand stimuli used commonly might reflect neurocognitive mechanisms associated with spatial associations rather than imitative tendencies.

KW - Automatic imitation

KW - Orthogonal spatial compatibility

KW - Polarity correspondence

KW - Semantic control

UR - https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13415-020-00860-y

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85099406625&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3758/s13415-020-00860-y

DO - 10.3758/s13415-020-00860-y

M3 - Article

C2 - 33432546

SN - 1530-7026

VL - 21

SP - 212

EP - 230

JO - Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience

JF - Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience

IS - 1

ER -

Czekóová K, Shaw DJ, Lamoš M, Špiláková B, Salazar M, Brázdil M. Imitation or Polarity Correspondence? Behavioural and Neurophysiological Evidence for the Confounding Influence of Orthogonal Spatial Compatibility on Measures of Automatic Imitation. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience. 2021 Feb;21(1):212-230. Epub 2021 Jan 12. doi: 10.3758/s13415-020-00860-y