Ondobaka, S. 1 , de Lange, F. P. 1 , Newman-Norlund, R. D. 2 , Wiemers, M. 1 & Bekkering, H. 1
1 Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen
2 Department of Exercise Science, University of South Carolina
Observing the actions of another person influences planning and control of our own actions. However, little is known about how intentions formed prior to action planning influence this process. In the current experiment, we manipulated the congruency of action intentions and prior intentions in a pair of jointly acting individuals in a card-game situation and investigated how this influences performance. In general, actions were initiated faster when co-actors had the same prior intention, i.e., had to follow the same rule. We also observed an action intention congruency effect when their movements were directed to the same spatial location. Importantly, this action congruency effect was only present when co-actors had the same prior intention. These findings suggest the existence of a shared representation of own and others´ prior intentions, and argue for a dynamic, multi-tiered intentional mechanism involved in the processing of others’ actions.