Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Title: Actions speak louder than words: comparing automatic imitation and verbal command

Authors: Helge Gillmeister, Arnaud Badets and Cecilia Heyes University College London, London, UK

Corresponding author: Helge Gillmeister Department of Psychology, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP, United Kingdom Tel.: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail]

Running head: Actions speak louder than words

Word count: 3904

Actions speak louder than words

Abstract

Automatic imitation – copying observed actions without intention – is known to occur, not only in neurological patients and those with developmental disorders, but also in healthy, typically-developing adults and children. Previous research has shown that a variety of actions are automatically imitated, and that automatic imitation promotes social affiliation and rapport. We assessed the power of automatic imitation by comparing it with the strength of the tendency to obey verbal commands. In a Stroop interference paradigm, the stimuli were compatible, incompatible and neutral compounds of hand postures and verbal commands. When imitative responses were required, the impact of irrelevant action images on responding to words was greater than the effect of irrelevant words on responding to actions. Control group performance showed that this asymmetry was not due to modality effects or differential salience of action and word stimuli. These results indicate that automatic imitation was more powerful than verbal command.

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Actions speak louder than words

Introduction

Even when we do not intend to imitate others, we are inclined to copy their body movements. This tendency, known as ‘mimicry’ or ‘automatic imitation’, was once thought to be confined to patients with frontal brain damage (Lhermitte, Pillon, & Serdaru, 1986), atypically-developing individuals (e.g. Charman & Baron-Cohen, 1994), ‘savages’ (Darwin, 1989) and nonhuman animals (Thorndike, 1898).

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