Dolk, T. 1 , Hommel, B. 2 , Prinz, W. 1 & Liepelt, R. 3, 1
1 Department of Psychology, Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Leipzig, Germany.
2 Cognitive Psychology Unit, and Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition. Leiden University. Leiden, The Netherlands.
3 Department of Psychology, Junior Group “Neurocognition of Joint Action”. Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster. Münster, Germany.
The social Simon effect (SSE) has been considered as an index of action co-representation. However, recent findings challenge this view by suggesting that the SSE may result from salient events that provide a reference for spatially coding one's own action. The aim of the present study was to further clarify the role of action co-representation in the SSE. If referential response coding of an individual’s own action is induced by any salient event, it should not matter whether this event is social in nature or not. We manipulated the saliency and nature of reference-providing events, ranging from non-human “social” events (Experiment 1), over non-social animated events (Experiment 2) to non-animated events (Experiment 3) in an auditory go-nogo Simon task. We found reliable SSEs under solo conditions in all three experiments. We conclude that the SSE occurs whenever agents code their own action as left or right in reference to another salient event, suggesting that the effect does not necessarily require a social co-representation of another person’s action.