Top-Down Modulation of Motor Priming by Belief About Animacy: A Registered Replication Report

Research has shown that people automatically imitate others and that this tendency is stronger when the other person is a human compared with a non-human agent. However, a controversial question is whether automatic imitation is also modulated by whether people believe the other person is a human. Although early research supported this hypothesis, not all studies reached the same conclusion and a recent meta-analysis found that there is currently neither evidence in favor nor against an influence of animacy beliefs on automatic imitation. One of the most prominent studies supporting such an influence is the study by Liepelt & Brass (2010), who found that automatic imitation was stronger when participants believed an ambiguous, gloved hand to be human, as opposed to wooden. In this registered report, including both original authors, we provide a high-powered replication of this study. By doing so, the current report contributes to answering the longstanding question of whether automatic imitation can be modulated by high-level social beliefs.