Perceptual cognitive processes underlying the recognition of individual and interactive actions

Humans are social beings whose physical interactions with other people require rapid recognition of the other person actions, for example when shaking hands. Previous research has investigated the perceptual cognitive processes involved in action recognition using open loop experiments. In these experiments participants passively view actions during recognition. These studies identified several important bottom-up mechanisms in action recognition. However, in daily life participants often recognize action for or during action production. In order to fully understand action recognition under more realistic conditions, we examined visual action perception in classical open-loop (participants observe actions), semi-closed (participants interact with an avatar which carries out prerecorded actions), and closed loop experiments (two participants interact naturally with each other using feedback loops). Our results demonstrate the importance of considering high level factors that are under top-down control in action recognition