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Published on: June 13, 2019
Visual perception and neural correlates of novel 'biological motion'
John A Pyles1, Javier O Garcia, Donald D Hoffman
1Department of Cognitive Sciences, 3151 Social Sciences Plaza, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-5100, USA.
Abstract:
Studies of biological motion have identified specialized neural machinery for the perception of human actions. Our experiments examine behavioral and neural responses to novel, articulating and non-human 'biological motion'. We find that non-human actions are seen as animate, but do not convey body structure when viewed as point-lights. Non-human animations fail to engage the human STSp, and neural responses in pITG, ITS and FFA/FBA are reduced only for the point-light versions. Our results suggest that STSp is specialized for human motion and ventral temporal regions support general, dynamic shape perception. We also identify a region in ventral temporal cortex 'selective' for non-human animations, which we suggest processes novel, dynamic objects.
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