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Beyond simulation? Neural mechanisms for predicting the actions of others

Our ability to attribute mental states such as beliefs and desires to other people has been proposed to involve simulating their mental processes in our own brains. A new imaging study shows that predicting the actions of others does involve areas in the human action control system, but not the same areas that are activated when we plan to perform the same actions ourselves.

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Figure 1: Training phase of the associative visuomotor task.

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Sebanz, N., Frith, C. Beyond simulation? Neural mechanisms for predicting the actions of others. Nat Neurosci 7, 5–6 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0104-5

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