%0 Journal Article
%T Top
%A Ada Kritikos
%A Maxwell Lyons
%A Samuel Sparks
%J Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
%@ 1747-0226
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1747021818807697
%X Previous studies report that viewing exaggerated, high-lifting reaches (versus direct reaches) primes higher vertical deviation in wrist trajectory in the observer¡¯s subsequent reaches (trajectory priming), but it is unclear to what extent this effect depends upon task instructions relevant to top-down attention. In two experiments, participants were instructed to gaze at a dot presented on a large monitor for a colour-change go signal that cued them to execute a direct reach to a target. In the background, the monitor also displayed life-sized films of a human model. The films were of the model either remaining still or reaching to grasp a target with either a direct trajectory or an exaggerated, high-lifting trajectory. When the dot traced the human model¡¯s wrist throughout her movement, a robust trajectory priming effect emerged. When the dot remained stationary in a central location but the human model reached in the background, the human model¡¯s trajectory did not alter the participants¡¯ trajectories. Finally, when the dot traced exaggerated and direct trajectories and the human model remained stationary, the dot¡¯s movement produced an attenuated, non-significant trajectory priming effect. These findings show that top-down attentional factors modulate trajectory priming. In addition, a moving non-human stimulus does not produce the same degree of action priming when contextual factors make salient its independence of human agency and/or intention
%K Contextual effects
%K action priming
%K trajectory priming
%K attention
%K top-down factors
%K instruction effects
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1747021818807697