Favouritism in the sensorimotor system: Social interaction modulates predictive action simulation

The ability to anticipate others’ actions is crucial for social interaction. We have recently showed that one simulates in advance an action performed by an interaction partner and practically ignores the same action performed by a person that (s)he never interacts with (Kourtis et. al., Biology Letters, 2010). In a recent follow-up experiment we explored the effects of interaction history on action simulation. Similar to the previous study, the setup comprised of an EEG participant, an interaction partner and an “outsider” (i.e. a person only performing individual actions). The task of the EEG participant was t…