Action

The majority of work in our lab uses motion-tracking and brain stimulation to study human movement. A specific area of interest for us is imitation – an important skill for learning new actions. In previous work we have tried to distinguish the brain and behavioural mechanisms underlying the imitation of actions that we know and actions that we don’t know (e.g., Reader et al., 2018; Reader & Holmes, 2019). Currently, we’re seeking to better understand the remarkable human ability to handle multiple objects at once (Reader et al., 2025), as well as collaborating with qualitative researchers to better understand the development of unique motor skills in individuals with congenital upper limb differences.

Body perception

Our work in this area has mostly focused on examining the links between high-level perception of the body (i.e., the subjective experience of where it is, what it is like, and whether it is attributed to the self) and motor control (Reader & Ehrsson, 2019; Reader et al., 2022; Reader et al., 2021). We’re also interested in developing a better understanding of illusions as a tool to study body representation (Reader et al., 2021; Reader, 2022).