Action understanding in an object context

Multiple lines of evidence support the idea of ‘mirror systems’ in the human (and monkey) brain that represent other people’s bodily states in terms of the observer’s own sensorimotor experiences. This system has been proposed to provide observers with embodied knowledge of other people’s sensations, goals and intentions. In my talk, I will argue that conceptualising action understanding solely in terms of a sensorimotor matching process is too simple. Human action takes place in the context of objects, and I will provide evidence from behavioural and neuroimaging experiments that this object context is a prime contributor to action understanding. Object context directly influences how actions are perceived, determining both their motor and  sensory-tactile representations, as well as guiding inferences about their goals. In many instances, object-based rather than motor-based processes may therefore be a primary driver of goal understanding processes in humans, and I will sketch a simple model that integrates these findings.