N300 and social affordances: a study with a real person and a dummy as stimuli

Pictures of objects have been shown to automatically activate affordances, that is, actions that could be performed with the object. Similarly, pictures of faces are likely to activate social affordances, that is, interactions that would be possible with the person whose face is being presented. Most interestingly, if it is the face of a real person that is shown, one particular type of social interactions can even be carried out while event-related potentials (ERPs) are recorded. Indeed, subtle eye movements can be made to achieve an eye contact with the person with minimal artefacts on the EEG. The present study thus used the face of a real person to explore the electrophysiological correlates of affordances in a situation where some of them (i.e., eye contacts) are actually performed. The ERPs this person elicited were compared to those evoked by another 3D stimulus: a real dummy, and thus by a stimulus that should also automatically activate eye contact affordances but with which such affordances could then be inhibited since they cannot be carried out with an object. The photos of the person and of the dummy were used as matching stimuli that should not activate social affordances as strongly as the two 3D stimuli and for which social affordances cannot be carried out. The fronto-central N300s to the real dummy were found of greater amplitudes than those to the photos and to the real person. We propose that these greater N300s index the greater inhibition needed after the stronger activations of affordances induced by this 3D stimulus than by the photos. Such an inhibition would not have occurred in the case of the real person because eye contacts were carried out.