Tsantani, M., Yon, D. and Cook, R. (2024) Neural Representations of Observed Interpersonal Synchrony/Asynchrony in the Social Perception Network. Journal of Neuroscience, 44 (20). e2009222024. ISSN 0270-6474
Abstract
The visual perception of individuals is thought to be mediated by a network of regions in the occipitotemporal cortex that supports specialized processing of faces, bodies, and actions. In comparison, we know relatively little about the neural mechanisms that support the perception of multiple individuals and the interactions between them. The present study sought to elucidate the visual processing of social interactions by identifying which regions of the social perception network represent interpersonal synchrony. In an fMRI study with 32 human participants (26 female, 6 male), we used multivoxel pattern analysis to investigate whether activity in face-selective, body-selective, and interaction-sensitive regions across the social perception network supports the decoding of synchronous versus asynchronous head-nodding and head-shaking. Several regions were found to support significant decoding of synchrony/asynchrony, including extrastriate body area (EBA), face-selective and interaction-sensitive mid/posterior right superior temporal sulcus, and occipital face area. We also saw robust cross-classification across actions in the EBA, suggestive of movement-invariant representations of synchrony/asynchrony. Exploratory whole-brain analyses also identified a region of the right fusiform cortex that responded more strongly to synchronous than to asynchronous motion. Critically, perceiving interpersonal synchrony/asynchrony requires the simultaneous extraction and integration of dynamic information from more than one person. Hence, the representation of synchrony/asynchrony cannot be attributed to augmented or additive processing of individual actors. Our findings therefore provide important new evidence that social interactions recruit dedicated visual processing within the social perception network that extends beyond that engaged by the faces and bodies of the constituent individuals.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 Tsantani et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed. |
Keywords: | extrastriate body area; interpersonal synchrony; social interactions; social perception; superior temporal sulcus |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 03 Sep 2024 16:04 |
Last Modified: | 03 Sep 2024 16:04 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Society for Neuroscience |
Identification Number: | 10.1523/jneurosci.2009-22.2024 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:216690 |