Figure 1. Experimental designs.

Panel a): The two hand muscle from which motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were recorded. Panel b): Experiment 2. Here, the four food or non-food objects were separately presented. Within each of these main conditions, subjects were asked to observe the grasping (with or without the corresponding odour) or to simply smell the object without observing food or soap. “Salame” is the Italian name of salami, “Mortadella” represents the English term “balony”, and “Bombolone” is the Italian word to define something like a custard filled donut. Panel c): Experiment 3. Here, the four objects were simultaneously presented. The subjects smelled a single odorant (i.e.,bombolone), while observing the experimenter reaching and grasping three edible objects (one of which was bombolone) or a non-edible object of a similar shape (soap).