PSYC 205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Social Complexity, Superior Temporal Sulcus, Extrastriate Body Area
28 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Basic, foundational ability to interact in a social environment, recognizing conspecifics, predators, and prey. The movement of vertebrates is non-rigid, yet constrained by the configuration of the body and gravity itself. Offers information to the human observer- can extract info regarding species classification, gender, attractiveness, and emotion from how something moves. Point-light display- created by depicting the movements of individual joints with single lights, producing an animation of movement: display biological motion without key morphological features: faces, skin, hair. By closely attending to those entities around one that are alive, an organism is provided with important experiences which can guide learning. Mockingbirds use the recognition of individual features (possibly within the face) to identify and distinguish intruders from other humans. Faces are good predictors of the presence of an animate social entity, provide identifying information, and provide informative cues regarding underlying emotional states. Morton & johnson- specialized cognitive system is used to perceive and discriminate faces.
