A recent hypothesis in cognitive neuroscience, put forward by Wolfgang Prinz in 1997, stating that perception and action are not independent systems, but rather share resources and mutually influence each other. Thus, action perception and action planning draw on common psychological codes and amodal representational frameworks. As suggested by Prinz, common coding may most appropriately apply to ‘high-level’ processing at cognitive levels of representation. There is as yet no conclusive evidence in support of a well-identified neural substrate for a common coding between perception and action. Nevertheless, the hypothesis, a close cousin of the two visual systems hypothesis, continues to have an important influence on studies of imitation as it holds that action planning is activated during perception.
See Active intermodal matching (AIM), Amodal, Cognitive neuroscience, Correspondence problem, Dorsal visual pathway (or stream), Imitation, Mirror neurons, Perception-action coupling, Shared neural representations, Representation (mental), Two visual systems hypothesis, Ventral visual pathway (or stream)