Interference of action perception on action production increases across the adult life span

Age-related differences in interference control in the context of a finger-lifting task: an fMRI study

Humans tend to automatically imitate others and their actions while also being able to control such imitative tendencies. Interference control, necessary to suppress own imitative tendencies, develops rapidly in childhood and adolescence, plateaus in adulthood and slowly declines with advancing age. It remains to be shown though which neural processes underpin these differences across the lifespan. In a cross-sectional functional magnetic resonance imaging study with three age groups (adolescents (ADs) 14-17 years, young adults (YAs) 21-31, older adults (OAs) 56-76, N = 91 healthy female participants), we investigated the behavioral and neural correlates of interference control in the context of automatic imitation using the finger-lifting task. ADs showed the most efficient interference control, while no significant differences emerged between YAs and OAs, despite OAs showing longer reaction times. On the neural level, all age groups showed engagement of the right temporoparietal junction, right supramarginal gyrus and bilateral insula, aligning well with studies previously using this task. However, our analyses did not reveal any age-related differences in brain activation, neither in these nor in other areas. This suggests that ADs might have a more efficient use of the engaged brain networks and, on the other hand, OAs' capacity for interference control and the associated brain functions might be largely preserved.

Three-year-olds' Perspective-taking in Social Interactions: Relations with Socio-cognitive Skills

Understanding others’ perspectives and integrating this knowledge in social interactions is challenging for young children; even adults struggle with this skill. While young children show the capacity to understand what others can and cannot see under supportive laboratory conditions, more research is necessary to understand how children implement their perspective-taking (PT) skill during interactions and which socio-cognitive skills support their ability to do so. This preregistered study examined children’s Level 1 visual PT in a real-time social interaction and tested whether social-cognitive skills (focusing on inhibition of imitation) predicted PT. Thirty-six 3-year-old children (mean age: 37.3 months) participated in a PT task and responded implicitly (via eye gaze) and explicitly (via toy choice) to situations where their communicative partner could see some objects but not others. Three-year-olds demonstrated sensitivity to another’s perspective via implicit responses, but did not consistently take their partner’s perspective into account in their actions when considering objects their partner could not see. Contrary to adult findings, children who struggled to inhibit imitating (those more affected by another’s actions) demonstrated better PT, again when considering objects outside their partner’s sight. Thus, 3-year-olds’ sensitivity to others’ perspectives was robust, while acting on PT knowledge may still be developing; further, children more affected by another’s actions demonstrated improved PT skills.