Out of your hand's reach, out of my eyes' reach

摘要

When witnessing another's action, people recruit the same motor resources that enable them to efficiently perform that action, thus gazing at its target well before the agent's hand. But just to what extent does this recruitment help people in grabbing another's action target? If the latter seems to be out of the agent's reach, will this impact on people's gaze behaviour? We recorded proactive eye movements while participants witnessed someone else trying to reach for and grasp objects located either within or outside his reach. Proactivity of gaze was impaired when the targets were just out of the agent's reach. This effect is likely to be due to an interpersonal bodily space representation that allows one to map another's reaching space, thus prompting proactive eye movements towards the target just in case the agent is in the position to act upon it.