It is assumed that there is a direct link between perception and action (e. g. Prinz, 1997; Jeannerod, 2001; Rizzolatti et al., 2001) and that both influence each other. The aim of the present study was to examine how past actions or representations of actions influence perception ("perceptual resonance", Schütz-Bosbach &
Prinz, 2007). To investigate that question two approaches were chosen. On the one hand, we compared the performance of experts and novices (influence of motor expertise), on the other hand observers had to judge their own movements (influence of motor competence), because we assume that someone is an expert for his/her own movements. We used an effect anticipation (boule), an action discrimination or an actor identification task (both basketball dribbling) to examine the role of the motor system in reference to perception.Our hypothesis was that experts should show better performances compared to novices within a perception task (Williams &
Ward, 2001). Additionally, observers should show better performances when looking at one s own movements compared to looking at the movements of friends or strangers (e. g. Knoblich &
Flach, 2001; Loula et al., 2005).
Within the basketball experiment we found evidence that experts are better able to perceive and judge movements than novices. Furthermore, we also found evidence within the boule experiment that a higher level of motor expertise influences perception positive. However, we did not find a clear evidence for the assumption that one s own movements are better perceived than the movements of friends or strangers. Whereas there was no advantage when looking at one s own movements within the boule study we were at least able to show that motor competence has a minor effect within the basketball experiment. Due to the fact that this result was only true for the actor identification task and not for the action discrimination task we assume that the influence of motor competence is task depend. That leads to the conclusion that additional research is needed to prove the assumption that the influence of motor competence depends on the task. Furthermore, it would be interesting to find out what kind of tasks lead to better perception when looking at one s own movements and therefore to be able to systematically expect an advantage of motor competence for perception.
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