Complementary actions: Novel perspectives

Background: Many daily activities involve performing an action while simultaneously encoding other events. This is particularly interesting during complementary forms of social interactions wherein two (or more) individuals coordinate their joint actions in a balanced way. But despite interest, relevance, and theoretical development on how people represent their own and other person’s actions, there is still a considerable lack of understanding of the cognitive mechanisms and neural networks governing interactive performance. Aims: The aim of this survey will be to determine the neural bases and critical processes underlying such conditions and how they modulate performance during social interactions. Method: I will provide behavioral, neurophysiologic and neuroimaging data in order to outline the functional importance of complementary actions in the context of the action–perception domain. Results: Preliminary data utilizing different research methods indicate a specific network of activations underlying complementary actions. Conclusions: How one’s own action is influenced by other’s actions during social interactions is just beginning to be understood. The idea that observing an action automatically triggers an inclination to execute it was largely based on the fact that most studies did not explicitly challenge the automaticity and flexibility of the visuomotor transformation process. A large amount of behavioral as well as neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies is shedding light on the functioning of the human motor system in social contexts and increasing our knowledge on forms of social behavior frequently occurring in daily life situations.