Tracking the Time Course of Top-Down Contextual Effects on Motor Responses during Action Comprehension.

Previous studies indicate that, when we observe other people's actions, the context in which actions take place influences intention understanding. However, little is known about the precise mechanisms involved in the contextual modulation of action representation (i.e., inhibition vs facilitation) and how they unfold in time. The present study sheds light on these aspects. Specifically, we show an early top-down facilitation (at ∼240 ms) and a later inhibition (at ∼400 ms) of motor resonance in response to actions observed in congruent and incongruent contexts, respectively.