Martynenko Ilona, Koldewyn Kami, Downing Paul E
Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, 49069, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, LL572AS, United Kingdom.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2025 Jan 18;20(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsaf057.
Recent research reveals that human occipitotemporal 'social brain' regions that are selective for images of individual faces and bodies are also sensitive to visual cues of social interaction. Earlier studies mainly contrasted observing dyadic interactions with non-interactive controls, emphasizing the interacting/non-interacting distinction to observers, and lacking the variety seen in natural settings. To address these limitations, we analysed a 7 T fMRI data set in which participants viewed many naturalistic images while performing a memory task. We focused on 182 scenes containing at least two individuals, and used localizers to identify face- and body-selective regions of interest (ROIs). Brain responses to each image were measured, and the depiction of social interaction was rated by independent observers. Control measures were gathered, per image, for the number of people, their surface area and distribution, and their implied animatedness. Linear and generalized additive modelling revealed that social interaction predicted a greater BOLD response in all ROIs, beyond the effects of the control variables. Face- and body-selective regions in both hemispheres showed heightened sensitivity to social interaction in natural scenes, even during an orthogonal task. These findings expand our understanding of 'social vision' areas beyond individual person perception to include multi-person social interactions.
最近的研究表明，人类枕颞叶“社会脑”区域对个体面部和身体图像具有选择性，同时也对社会互动的视觉线索敏感。早期研究主要将观察二元互动与非互动对照进行对比，向观察者强调互动/非互动的区别，且缺乏自然场景中所见的多样性。为解决这些局限性，我们分析了一个7T功能磁共振成像数据集，其中参与者在执行记忆任务时观看了许多自然主义图像。我们聚焦于182个包含至少两个人的场景，并使用定位器来识别面部和身体选择性感兴趣区域（ROI）。测量了大脑对每张图像的反应，并由独立观察者对社会互动的描绘进行评分。针对每张图像收集了控制指标，包括人数、他们的表面积和分布以及他们隐含的动态性。线性和广义相加模型显示，除了控制变量的影响外，社会互动在所有ROI中都预测了更大的血氧水平依赖（BOLD）反应。即使在执行正交任务期间，两个半球的面部和身体选择性区域在自然场景中对社会互动也表现出更高的敏感性。这些发现扩展了我们对“社会视觉”区域的理解，从个体感知扩展到包括多人社会互动。
