Donders Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen 6525GD, the Netherlands; Department of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor LL572AS, Gwynedd, UK.
Institut des Sciences Cognitives, Marc Jeannerod, Lyon 69500, France.
Curr Biol. 2024 Jan 22;34(2):343-351.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.009. Epub 2024 Jan 4.
Navigating our complex social world requires processing the interactions we observe. Recent psychophysical and neuroimaging studies provide parallel evidence that the human visual system may be attuned to efficiently perceive dyadic interactions. This work implies, but has not yet demonstrated, that activity in body-selective cortical regions causally supports efficient visual perception of interactions. We adopt a multi-method approach to close this important gap. First, using a large fMRI dataset (n = 92), we found that the left hemisphere extrastriate body area (EBA) responds more to face-to-face than non-facing dyads. Second, we replicated a behavioral marker of visual sensitivity to interactions: categorization of facing dyads is more impaired by inversion than non-facing dyads. Third, in a pre-registered experiment, we used fMRI-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation to show that online stimulation of the left EBA, but not a nearby control region, abolishes this selective inversion effect. Activity in left EBA, thus, causally supports the efficient perception of social interactions.
在复杂的社会世界中导航需要处理我们观察到的互动。最近的心理物理学和神经影像学研究提供了平行的证据，表明人类视觉系统可能能够有效地感知二元互动。这项工作暗示，但尚未证明，身体选择性皮质区域的活动有助于有效地感知互动。我们采用多方法的方法来弥合这一重要差距。首先，我们使用了一个大型 fMRI 数据集（n=92），发现左半球的额下回（EBA）对面部比非面部的二元组的反应更强烈。其次，我们复制了一个对互动的视觉敏感性的行为标记：对面部二元组的分类比非面部二元组更容易受到反转的影响。第三，在一个预先注册的实验中，我们使用 fMRI 引导的经颅磁刺激来表明，对左 EBA 的在线刺激，但不是附近的控制区域的刺激，会消除这种选择性反转效应。因此，左 EBA 的活动可以有效地支持社会互动的感知。
