Skip Navigation



Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access published online on May 10, 2007
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, doi:10.1093/scan/nsm011
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
2/3/199    most recent
nsm011v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Mar, R. A.
Right arrow Articles by Macrae, C. N.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Mar, R. A.
Right arrow Articles by Macrae, C. N.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Detecting agency from the biological motion of veridical vs animated agents

Raymond A. Mar1, William M. Kelley2, Todd F. Heatherton2 and C. Neil Macrae2,3

1York University, Department of Psychology Brain Sciences Building 4700, Keele St, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3, 2Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Moore Hall, Hanover NH 03755, USA, and 3School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen AB24 2UB, Scotland, UK

The ability to detect agency is fundamental for understanding the social world. Underlying this capacity are neural circuits that respond to patterns of intentional biological motion in the superior temporal sulcus and temporoparietal junction. Here we show that the brain's blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response to such motion is modulated by the representation of the actor. Dynamic social interactions were portrayed by either live-action agents or computer-animated agents, enacting the exact same patterns of biological motion. Using an event-related design, we found that the BOLD response associated with the perception and interpretation of agency was greater when identical physical movements were performed by real rather than animated agents. This finding has important implications for previous work on biological motion that has relied upon computer-animated stimuli and demonstrates that the neural substrates of social perception are finely tuned toward real-world agents. In addition, the response in lateral temporal areas was observed in the absence of instructions to make mental inferences, thus demonstrating the spontaneous implementation of the intentional stance.

Keywords: biological motion; intentional action; social perception; superior temporal sulcus; temporoparietal junction

Correspondence should be addressed to Raymond A. Mar, York University, Department of Psychology Brain Sciences Building 4700, Keele St, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3. E-mail: raymond.a.mar{at}gmail.com

Received September 9, 2006. Accepted March 28, 2007.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Cereb CortexHome page
P. Tavares, A. D. Lawrence, and P. J. Barnard
Paying Attention to Social Meaning: An fMRI Study
Cereb Cortex, August 1, 2008; 18(8): 1876 - 1885.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.