Ricerc@Sapienza

Neuroimaging and EEG studies have shown that passive observation of the full body and of specific body parts is associated with: 1) activity of an occipito-temporal region named the Extrastriate Body Area (EBA), 2) amplitude modulations of a specific posterior ERP component (N1/N190), and 3) a theta-band (4-7Hz) synchronization recorded from occipito-temporal electrodes compatible with the location of EBA.

Discrepancies between sensory predictions and action outcome are at the base of error coding. However, these phenomena have mainly been studied focussing on individual performance. Here, we explored EEG responses to motor prediction errors during a human-avatar interaction and show that Theta/Alpha activity of the frontal error-monitoring system works in phase with activity of the occipito-temporal node of the action observation network.