Saccadic eye movements do not trigger a joint Simon effect.

Although the joint Simon task (JST) has been investigated for more than a decade, its cause is still unclear. According to ideomotor views of action control, action effects are a commonly cited explanation. However, action effects are usually confounded with the actions producing such effects.

Joint Simon effects for non-human co-actors.

Social interactions with non-biological agents and interactions with technical devices have become increasingly important over the last years. Recent studies investigating the interactions between humans and non-human agents showed rather inconsistent results. While the joint Simon effect (cSE) was found to be absent for non-human co-actors like virtual wooden hands, other studies showed pronounced cSEs when the co-actor was a real event-producing object.

Joint action changes valence-based action coding in an implicit attitude task.

Recent studies suggest that co-acting with another person induces a problem to discriminate between one's own and the other's actions which can be resolved by emphasizing action features that discriminate best between both persons' actions in a given task context. Mostly, overt action features like the spatial position of responses have been suggested as discriminating action features. In the present study, we tested whether non-externally perceivable, covert action features can be used for resolving the action discrimination problem during joint action.

The joint Simon effect depends on perceived agency, but not intentionality, of the alternative action.

A co-actor's intentionality has been suggested to be a key modulating factor for joint action effects like the joint Simon effect (JSE). However, in previous studies intentionality has often been confounded with agency defined as perceiving the initiator of an action as being the causal source of the action. The aim of the present study was to disentangle the role of agency and intentionality as modulating factors of the JSE.

Effects of a cognitive training on spatial learning and associated functional brain activations.

Background: Both cognitive and physical exercise have been discussed as promising interventions for healthy cognitive aging. The present study assessed the effects of cognitive training (spatial vs. perceptual training) and physical training (endurance training vs.

When humanoid robots become human-like interaction partners: corepresentation of robotic actions.

In human-human interactions, corepresenting a partner's actions is crucial to successfully adjust and coordinate actions with others. Current research suggests that action corepresentation is restricted to interactions between human agents facilitating social interaction with conspecifics. In this study, we investigated whether action corepresentation, as measured by the social Simon effect (SSE), is present when we share a task with a real humanoid robot.

Specifying social cognitive processes with a social dual-task paradigm.

Automatic imitation tasks measuring motor priming effects showed that we directly map observed actions of other agents onto our own motor repertoire (direct matching). A recent joint action study using a social dual-task paradigm provided evidence for task monitoring. In the present study, we aimed to test (a) if automatic imitation is disturbed during joint action and (b) if task monitoring is content or time dependent.

[Rho proteins - the key regulators of cytoskeleton in the progression of mitosis and cytokinesis].

The Rho proteins are members of the Ras superfamily of small GTPases. They are thought to be crucial regulators of multiple signal transduction pathways that influence a wide range of cellular functions, including migration, membrane trafficking, adhesion, polarity and cell shape changes. Thanks to their ability to control the assembly and organization of the actin and microtubule cytoskeletons, Rho GTPases are known to regulate mitosis and cytokinesis progression.

The feeling of agency: empirical indicators for a pre-reflective level of action awareness.

The sense of agency has been defined as the sense that I am the author of my own actions. This sense, however, is usually not reflected upon but instead pre-reflectively experienced. Experimental approaches usually measure the sense of agency by judgments or verbal reports, despite evidence that the sense of agency is not sufficiently assessed on such a reflective level.