Ready Both to Your and to My Hands: Mapping the Action Space of Others

TLDR

Research on action–perception interaction has mainly focused on single individuals, yet we perceive objects and actions within a world populated by other perceiving and acting bodies. The study asks whether our action‑oriented object perception is modulated by the presence of another potential actor. To address this, the authors employed the spatial alignment effect paradigm, systematically testing the effect when a visually presented handled object was positioned near either the perceiver or a virtual avatar. They found that the spatial alignment effect occurs whenever an object is within the reaching space of a potential actor—whether the participant or another person—showing that objects afford suitable motor acts for both our own and others’ hands and suggesting that mapping of reaching spaces may be crucial for joint action.

Abstract

To date, mutual interaction between action and perception has been investigated mainly by focusing on single individuals. However, we perceive affording objects and acts upon them in a surrounding world inhabited by other perceiving and acting bodies. Thus, the issue arises as to whether our action-oriented object perception might be modulated by the presence of another potential actor. To tackle this issue we used the spatial alignment effect paradigm and systematically examined this effect when a visually presented handled object was located close either to the perceiver or to another individual (a virtual avatar). We found that the spatial alignment effect occurred whenever the object was presented within the reaching space of a potential actor, regardless of whether it was the participant's own or the other's reaching space. These findings show that objects may afford a suitable motor act when they are ready not only to our own hand but also, and most importantly, to the other's hand. Our proposal is that this effect is likely to be due to a mapping of our own and the other's reaching space and we posit that such mapping could play a critical role in joining our own and the other's action.