Koldewyn Kami, Hanus Patricia, Balas Benjamin
Department of Brain and Cognitive Science and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA,
Psychon Bull Rev. 2014 Aug;21(4):969-75. doi: 10.3758/s13423-013-0562-5.
One critical component of understanding another's mind is the perception of "life" in a face. However, little is known about the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying this perception of animacy. Here, using a visual adaptation paradigm, we ask whether face animacy is (1) a basic dimension of face perception and (2) supported by a common neural mechanism across distinct face categories defined by age and species. Observers rated the perceived animacy of adult human faces before and after adaptation to (1) adult faces, (2) child faces, and (3) dog faces. When testing the perception of animacy in human faces, we found significant adaptation to both adult and child faces, but not dog faces. We did, however, find significant adaptation when morphed dog images and dog adaptors were used. Thus, animacy perception in faces appears to be a basic dimension of face perception that is species specific but not constrained by age categories.
理解他人心理的一个关键要素是对面部“生命感”的感知。然而，对于这种生命感知背后的认知和神经机制，我们知之甚少。在此，我们运用视觉适应范式，探究面部生命感是否（1）是面部感知的一个基本维度，以及（2）是否由跨越年龄和物种所定义的不同面部类别中的共同神经机制所支持。观察者在适应（1）成人面部、（2）儿童面部和（3）狗的面部之后，对成人面部的感知生命感进行评分。在测试对面部生命感的感知时，我们发现对成人和儿童面部都有显著的适应，但对狗的面部没有。然而，当使用变形的狗的图像和狗的适应刺激时，我们确实发现了显著的适应。因此，面部的生命感感知似乎是面部感知的一个基本维度，它具有物种特异性，但不受年龄类别的限制。
