TY - JOUR T1 - Mechanisms for action prediction operate differently in observers with motor experience JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/044438 SP - 044438 AU - Lincoln J Colling AU - William F Thompson AU - John Sutton Y1 - 2016/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/03/18/044438.abstract N2 - Recent theoretical and empirical work has suggested an important role for the motor system in generating predictions about the timing of external events. These predictions may play an important role in peoples’ ability to engage in temporally coordinated joint action with other people. As many forms of joint action involve skilled actors, such as musicians and dancers, researchers have recently turned their attention to whether specific motor experience might enhance predictive abilities. We tested the hypothesis that motor experience with an observed action modulates prediction accuracy by comparing the performance of naïve and experienced observers on a task that required participants to predict the timing of particular critical points in a ongoing observed action. Crucially, we employed action and non-action stimuli with identical temporal dynamics, and we predicted that motor experience would enhance prediction accuracy specifically for actions and would have a reduced or negligible effect on enhancing prediction accuracy for non-action stimuli. Our results showed that motor experience did modulate prediction accuracy and this resulted in greater accuracy for predictions about action stimuli relative to non-action stimuli. No difference between conditions was observed for the naïve observers. This suggests that motor experience with a partners actions might enhance peoples’ prediction accuracy and, therefore, their ability to engage in temporally coordinated joint action. ER -