In sum, our finding has two major implications for current theories of action perception. First, our finding demonstrates that there is no need to appeal to motor simulation to account for the influence of body constraints on body movement perception and that it can be a natural consequence of how the visuoperceptual system processes and represents human bodies . Second, this finding serves as a cautionary note against the argument that the influence of biomechanical or other motor constraints on action perception can be taken as evidence of the crucial role of observers' body motor representations in action perception. This conclusion, of course, does not preclude that somatosensory and motor representations may nevertheless influence the processing of body movements in some (other) tasks or under some conditions such as, for instance, in tasks benefitting from the ability to perform motor imagery , short term memory for body postures or the recognition of actions perceived in adverse conditions. Future research will have to address the fundamental questions of how the visual system encodes information about the biomechanical constraints of body part movements, how this implicit knowledge constrains action perception, and how and when motor representations acquired through motor experience can contribute to the processing of observed actions.