Putting action in perspective.

Full Abstract

Embodied approaches to cognition propose that our own actions influence our understanding of the world. Do other people's actions also have this influence? The present studies show that perceiving another person's actions changes the way people think about objects in a scene. In Study 1, participants viewed a photograph and answered a question about the location of one object relative to another. The question either did or did not call attention to an action being performed in the scene. Studies 2 and 3 focused on whether depicting an action in a scene influenced perspective choice. Across all studies, drawing attention to action, whether verbally or pictorially, led observers to encode object locations from the actor's spatial perspective. Study 4 demonstrated that the tendency to adopt the actor's perspective might be mediated by motor experience.

Author information

Author/s: Lozano, Sandra C (SC); Hard, Bridgette Martin (BM); Tversky, Barbara (B);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Jordan Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. scl(-atsign-)psych.stanford.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Retracted Publication

Journal: Cognition (Cognition), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Jun; vol 103 (issue 3) : pp 480-90

Dates: Created 2007/04/09; Completed 2007/06/01; Revised 2009/04/10;

PMID: 16765339, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 4/10/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

Comments and Corrections

RetractionIn: Lozano SC, Hard BM, Tversky B. Cognition. 2009 Jan;110(1):123. (PMID: 19124093)

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