Perspective taking promotes action understanding and learning.

People often learn actions by watching others. The authors propose and test the hypothesis that perspective taking promotes encoding a hierarchical representation of an actor's goals and subgoals-a key process for observational learning. Observers segmented videos of an object assembly task into coarse and fine action units. They described what happened in each unit from either the actor's, their own, or another observer's perspective and later performed the assembly task themselves. Participants who described the task from the actor's perspective encoded actions more hierarchically during observation and learned the task better.

[1]  J. Vorauer,et al.  So close, and yet so far: does collectivism foster transparency overestimation? , 2002 .

[2]  Marco Iacoboni,et al.  Lateralization in motor facilitation during action observation: a TMS study , 2001, NeuroImage.

[3]  Robert Cohen,et al.  The Development of spatial cognition , 1985 .

[4]  L. Craighero,et al.  Human motor cortex excitability during the perception of others’ action , 2005, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[5]  R. Byrne,et al.  Priming primates: Human and otherwise , 1998, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[6]  Matthew Flatt,et al.  PsyScope: An interactive graphic system for designing and controlling experiments in the psychology laboratory using Macintosh computers , 1993 .

[7]  W. Prinz,et al.  The imitative mind : development, evolution, and brain bases , 2002 .

[8]  Barbara Tversky,et al.  Putting action in perspective , 2007, Cognition.

[9]  G. Knoblich,et al.  The case for motor involvement in perceiving conspecifics. , 2005, Psychological bulletin.

[10]  W. Kintsch,et al.  Memory and cognition , 1977 .

[11]  Gillian Ku,et al.  Perspective-Taking and Self-Other Overlap: Fostering Social Bonds and Facilitating Social Coordination , 2005 .

[12]  T. Chartrand,et al.  Self-monitoring without awareness: using mimicry as a nonconscious affiliation strategy. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  K. Lashley The problem of serial order in behavior , 1951 .

[14]  Darren Newtson Attribution and the unit of perception of ongoing behavior. , 1973 .

[15]  G. Rizzolatti,et al.  Resonance behaviors and mirror neurons. , 1999, Archives italiennes de biologie.

[16]  A. Meltzoff Understanding the Intentions of Others: Re-Enactment of Intended Acts by 18-Month-Old Children. , 1995, Developmental psychology.

[17]  B. Tversky,et al.  Making sense of abstract events: Building event schemas , 2006, Memory & cognition.

[18]  Jeffrey M. Zacks,et al.  Human brain activity time-locked to perceptual event boundaries , 2001, Nature Neuroscience.

[19]  Mark H. Davis,et al.  Effect of perspective taking on the cognitive representation of persons: a merging of self and other. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  Allen Newell,et al.  Human Problem Solving. , 1973 .

[21]  B. Tversky,et al.  Hierarchical encoding of behavior: translating perception into action. , 2006, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[22]  M. Arbib,et al.  Neural expectations : A possible evolutionary path from manual skills to language , 1996 .

[23]  S Hurley,et al.  Perspectives on Imitation , 2004 .

[24]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[25]  M. Arbib,et al.  Language within our grasp , 1998, Trends in Neurosciences.

[26]  T. Chartrand,et al.  The chameleon effect: the perception-behavior link and social interaction. , 1999, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[27]  A. Galinsky,et al.  Perspective-taking: decreasing stereotype expression, stereotype accessibility, and in-group favoritism. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[28]  L. A. Jeffress Cerebral mechanisms in behavior : the Hixon symposium , 1951 .

[29]  Irene Santini de Sigel,et al.  Communication and Cognition , 1998 .

[30]  T. McNamara,et al.  Multiple views of spatial memory , 1997 .

[31]  L. Barsalou Situated simulation in the human conceptual system , 2003 .

[32]  S. Vandenberg,et al.  Mental Rotations, a Group Test of Three-Dimensional Spatial Visualization , 1978, Perceptual and motor skills.

[33]  Scott T. Grafton,et al.  Localization of grasp representations in humans by positron emission tomography , 1996, Experimental Brain Research.

[34]  Andrew Whiten,et al.  The Imitative Mind: The imitator's representation of the imitated: Ape and child , 2002 .

[35]  J. Mazziotta,et al.  Cortical mechanisms of human imitation. , 1999, Science.

[36]  F. J. Langdon,et al.  The Child's Conception of Space , 1967 .

[37]  C. Hendrick,et al.  Group Processes and Intergroup Relations , 1987 .

[38]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  Consequences of violating the independence assumption in analysis of variance. , 1986 .

[39]  L. Barsalou,et al.  Whither structured representation? , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[40]  C. Batson The Altruism Question: Toward A Social-psychological Answer , 1991 .

[41]  Jen-Chuen Hsieh,et al.  Modulation of spinal excitability during observation of bipedal locomotion , 2005, Neuroreport.

[42]  Jodie A. Baird,et al.  Infants parse dynamic action. , 2001, Child development.

[43]  Jeffrey M. Zacks,et al.  Perceiving, remembering, and communicating structure in events. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[44]  W. Levelt,et al.  Speaking: From Intention to Articulation , 1990 .