Social Perception and Interaction Database-A Novel Tool to Study Social Cognitive Processes With Point-Light Displays

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• Computer Vision

Background:

• Social interaction (SI) processing is fundamental for human social functioning.
• Previous research indicates preferential processing of SI over individual actions, even in simplified visual forms like point-light displays (PLDs).
• A need exists for standardized datasets to investigate the nuances of social information processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate the Social Perception and Interaction Database (SoPID), a novel PLD dataset.
• To enable research into multiple levels of social information processing, including communicative interactions and intentions.
• To provide a resource for studying the perception of social cues from minimalistic visual stimuli.

Main Methods:

• Actors performed various actions (communicative, emotional, synchronous, independent) captured via motion-capture.
• A stimulus interface was developed for presenting single/dyadic PLDs from second or third-person perspectives.
• Two validation studies with healthy participants assessed the recognizability of SoPID stimuli.

Main Results:

• High accuracy (93% ± 5%) was achieved in discriminating communicative from individual actions.
• Specific action types were interpreted with high accuracy (85% ± 4%).
• Stimulus scrambling significantly impacted recognizability, confirming the importance of motion cues.

Conclusions:

• The SoPID dataset is a viable tool for investigating the processing of communicative interactions and intentions.
• The findings support the use of PLDs for studying complex social perception.
• The SoPID database is publicly accessible for research purposes.