This review asks whether observers can obtain information about others' intentions from observation of their actions; and if so, whether this process is performed using direct perceptual or inferential processes (prominent examples of each being the intention understanding theory of mirror neuron function, and mentalizing accounts of intention understanding, respectively). I propose four conditions that should be fulfilled in order to support a direct perception account, and suggest that only two of these conditions are supported by the existing data. I then propose and review three further sources of evidence which have the potential to inform this debate, concluding that the data do not support the direct perception account. In particular, mirror neurons may be involved in lower-level processes of action perception, but there is no evidence to support their involvement in the type of higher-level intention understanding that is proposed by the direct perception account.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 25. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 December 2019.
All research outputs
#1,933,163
of 34,400,738 outputs
Outputs from Consciousness & Cognition
#257
of 1,882 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#20,083
of 308,262 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Consciousness & Cognition
#9
of 45 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,400,738 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,882 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 21.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 308,262 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 45 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its contemporaries.
