Previous research suggests the possibility that observers have access to action plans of others (Jordan & Hommel, 2008).To examine this we design three experiments. The first examines action-plan coding in participants performing the task(controllers) using a Hommel-like ’compatibility’ test measuring reaction times (Hommel, 1996). We manipulated theinclusion of task irrelevant auditory tones during the dot-control game. The second experiment utilized the same designto examine observer’s action-plans after watching the experimenter play the dot control game. Experiment 3 allows us toexamine the additional effects of the controller’s skill level and observer’s level of access to the task. So far the resultssupport the hypothesis that participants can learn action plans by observing the distal effects of another’s actions. Furtherresearch will help unearth the factors mediating observer’s action plan coding and the differences between how controllersand observer’s encode actions and their different effects.

Perceptual variables such as perceived distance contain information about future actions. Often our goals involve the integration of another’s goals, such as lifting heavy objects together. The purpose of this study was to investigate how another’s actions might influence one’s own goal-oriented perceptions, specifically, verbal distance estimates. Using a within-subject paradigm, we replicated a well-known finding that carrying a weighted backpack results in larger distance estimates relative to not carrying a backpack. In a crucial second condition, this effect was reversed: distance estimates were significantly greater when not carrying a weighted backpack than when carrying a backpack. In this condition, participants provided distance estimates while wearing a weighted backpack during the first phase and then gave estimates while not wearing a backpack, but following an experimenter wearing a weighted backpack in the second phase. Three additional conditions systematically documented how the observations of another’s actions influenced distance estimates.

We examined the effects of individual versus joint action and racial similarity and dissimilarity on a Simon task using mouse tracking to explore the implicit cognitive dynamics underlying responses. Participants were slower to respond when working with a partner than when working alone, and their mouse movements also differed across conditions. Participants paired with a different-race partner took longer to respond than participants paired with a same-race partner. We argue that, in the joint conditions, participants’ longer responses were the result of automatic inhibitory processes that arise within the social context.

We examined the effects of individual versus joint action on aSimon task using motion tracking to explore the implicitcognitive dynamics underlying responses. In both individual andjoint conditions, participants were slower to respond, and weredifferentially attracted to the distracter response location, whenthe spatial component of the stimulus was incompatible with theresponse location. When two people completed similar twochoice tasks together, the results were not statistically differentfrom the individual condition, even though the magnitude of thestimulus-response compatibility effect was slightly larger.Neither was there an increased effect when the partner had nostimulus-response conflict to resolve. We found no evidence foran action conflict when the responses of the two partners weredifferent. These data imply that the literature regarding the JointSimon task is still in the process of determining the relevantevents that interact with and support joint action.