Anticipated Imitation Is Not Affected by the Number of Imitators

Abstract

Anticipating to be imitated by another agent primes corresponding action plans in action models. Here we assessed whether being imitated by more than one coactor boosts anticipated imitation. This prediction was based on corresponding findings from motor priming by perceiving rather than anticipating movements of multiple agents. In contrast to this previous work, the effects of anticipated imitation were similar for imitation by a single agent and joint imitation by two agents. Anticipated imitation, therefore, appears to be based on sparse representations of only selected features rather than including a full representation of all possible consequences of ones own movements.