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Abstract
Our ability to generate actions and to recognize actions performed by others is the
bedrock of our social life. Behavioral evidence suggests that the processes underlying
perception and action might share a common representational framework. That is, observers
might understand the actions of another individual in terms of the same neural code
that they use to produce the same actions themselves. What neurophysiological evidence,
if any, supports such a hypothesis? In this article, brain imaging studies addressing
this question are reviewed and examined in the light of the functional segregation
of the perceptual mechanisms subtending visual recognition and those used for action.
We suggest that there are not yet conclusive arguments for a clear neurophysiological
substrate supporting a common coding between perception and action.