Correspondence effects with manual gestures and postures: A study of imitation

In this study, the authors applied methods and theories from research of st imulus-response compatibility (SRC) to action imitation. In 6 experiments, they adopted the logic of the Simon paradigm (B. Hommel & W. Print, 1996) t o explore interference between task-relevant symbolic stimulus features (co lor) and task-irrelevant iconic stimulus features (2 hand gestures and 2 po stures). The same 2 hand gestures served as responses. Pronounced correspon dence effects for both gestures and postures showed up throughout. In line with theories of SRC, the authors account for these correspondence effects in terms of overlap arising between stimulus and response features in a com mon representational domain. As a specific extension of this approach, they propose 2 functionally independent mechanisms: One operates movement-based when dynamic information is provided, and the other operates state-based w ith static postures as stimuli. Implications for theories of both SRC and a ction imitation are discussed.