Priming of hand and foot response: is spatial attention to the body site enough?

The purpose of the present study was to test whether we see evidence for body compatibility effects when viewing both familiar and unusual body postures. Specifically, in a task where colour targets have to be discriminated, we tested whether spatial orienting to a body site is sufficient for effects of body compatibility to emerge when viewing a task-irrelevant body or whether effects are dependent on whether or not we are able to adopt the viewed body posture. The results suggest that spatial orienting to a body site is insufficient; rather we argue that it is only postures that are familiar and we are easily able to adopt that can be processed fluently and influence target discrimination. This points to a key contribution of motor representations to body compatibility effects.