Have you ever been sitting at your work desk and you just can seem to focus on what you are doing? It may be because the person in the desk next to you is doing something different. In a study recently published in the Journal of Human Movement Science, Professor Tim Welsh of the University of Calgary showed that individuals who could see someone else in who was doing something different were less accurate and slower at their own task.

Why is this? Dr. Welsh believes that we automatically imagine ourselves doing a task we see someone else doing. This gets in the way of focusing on our own task, unless it is the same task, in which case it doesn’t interfere. It may even be a part of our innate tendency to imitate others (if you want to see this the next time you see a baby stick your tongue out a few times and see what the baby does).

Further Reading:

You can find a write up of the article on Science Daily:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080220110323.htm

Welsh, T. N., Higgins, L., Ray, M., Weeks, D. J. (2007). Seeing vs. believing: Is believing sufficient to activate the processes of response co-representation? Human Movement Science, 26, 853-866.