Does how I look at what you're doing depend on what I'm doing

Previous studies showed that people proactively gaze at the target of another's action by taking advantage of their own motor representation of that action. But just how selectively is one's own motor representation implicated in another's action processing? If people observe another's action while performing a compatible or an incompatible action themselves, will this impact on their gaze behaviour? We recorded proactive eye movements while participants observed an actor grasping small or large objects. The participants' right hand either freely rested on the table or held with a suitable grip a large or a small object, respectively. Proactivity of gaze behaviour significantly decreased when participants observed the actor reaching her target with a grip that was incompatible with respect to that used by them to hold the object in their own hand. This indicates that effective observation of action may depend on what one is actually doing, being actions observed best when the suitable motor representations may be readily recruited.