Weight perception during action observation: the role of motor skills and abilities

The aim of this work is to investigate the role that motor skills and abilities have in perceiving the weight of an object handled and moved by another person. This topic provides an understanding of the interaction between actions and perceptions by assessing how motor repertoire, either shaped during years of sport practice, or altered during aging and fatigability, modulates the way individuals perceived the movement performed by others. The first chapter (Chapter 1) presents a summary of the scientific literature about this topic, and, in particular, of the mechanisms underlying it, primarily motor resonance. Next, the state of the art on the perception of the weight of an object during the execution and observation of a movement is presented. The first study (Chapter 2) investigates the role of motor expertise and the acquisition of specific skills in assessing the weight of an object moved during a sport-specific gesture. In the second study (Chapter 3), the role of ageing and the decline of motor ability in the ability to perceive the weight of an object during the observation of an everyday life movement was investigated. In the third study (Chapter 4), the focus was on how the nature of the movement, i.e. concentric or eccentric movement, affected the ability to discriminate the weight of an object during action observation. The fourth study (Chapter 5) focused on how the state of the observer could affect this ability, specifically how fatigue affects the ability to discriminate and evaluate the weight of an object during the observation of an everyday movement.