title: Goal-directed actions activate the face-sensitive posterior superior temporal sulcus and fusiform gyrus in the absence of human-like perceptual cues.
abstract: The conditions under which we identify entities as animate agents and the neural mechanisms supporting this ability are central questions in social neuroscience. Prior studies have focused upon 2 perceptual cues for signaling animacy: 1) surface features representing body forms such as faces, torsos, and limbs and 2) motion cues associated with biological forms. Here, we consider a third cue--the goal-directedness of an action. Regions in the social brain network, such as the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and fusiform face area (FFA), are activated by human-like motion and body form perceptual cues signaling animacy. Here, we investigate whether these same brain regions are activated by goal-directed motion even when performed by entities that lack human-like perceptual cues. We observed an interaction effect whereby the presence of either human-like perceptual cues or goal-directed actions was sufficient to activate the right pSTS and FFA. Only stimuli that lacked human-like perceptual cues and goal-directed actions failed to activate the pSTS and FFA at the same level.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8205, USA.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shultz
authors.forename: Gregory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: McCarthy
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003463:Cues; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult