A hallmark of human social behavior is the effortless ability to relate one's own actions to that
of the interaction partner, eg, when stretching out one's arms to catch a tripping child. What …

Recognizing who is carrying out an action is essential for successful human interaction. The
cognitive mechanisms underlying this ability are little understood and have been subject of …

The social context in which an action is embedded provides important information for the
interpretation of an action. Is this social context integrated during the visual recognition of an …

Interacting agents may anticipate their partner's upcoming response and include it in their
action plan. In turn, observing an overt response can trigger agents to adapt. But although …

What is the role of ecology in automatic cognitive processes and social behavior? Our
motivated-preparation account posits that priming a social category readies the individual for …

It is well known that perceiving another's body movements activates corresponding motor
representations in an observer's brain. It is nevertheless true that in many situations simply …

A long standing debate revolves around the question whether visual action recognition
primarily relies on visual or motor action information. Previous studies mainly examined the …

Humans observe actions performed by others in many different visual and social settings.
What features do we extract and attend when we view such complex scenes, and how are …

The ability to interpret and predict other people's actions is highly evolved in humans and is
believed to play a central role in their cognitive behavior. However, there is no direct …

This chapter proposes that shared action representations provide the basic biological
mechanism for social interaction. It argues that shared representations are the primary …