An fMRI investigation of visual responses to social interactions

Visual 'person perception' research has largely focused on responses to individual human stimuli, for example, single faces or bodies presented in isolation. However, social interactions contain unique social information that cannot be inferred from isolated individuals, for example, whether two interactors share a common goal. Similarly, recent behavioural research demonstrates that visual responses to face and body information of interacting individuals are qualitatively different than when they are not interacting. However, little is known about the neural basis of these responses to interactive behaviour. The work presented in this thesis aims to characterize the neural correlates of third person social interaction perception. Across three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, converging evidence implicates the posterior temporal lobe as a key region in recognizing, differentiating, and integrating interactive information. The results from these experiments suggest that the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and extrastriate body area (EBA) play important complementary roles in third person social interaction perception, making valuable contributions to the emerging field of social interaction research.