Social Perception: Detection and Interpretation of Animacy, Agency, and Intention
M.D. Rutherford and Valerie A. Kuhlmeier
Abstract
As adults, we can quickly interpret minimal visual information as a cue that something is animate, as when we briefly catch sight of a mouse darting from hiding place to hiding place. With a mere glance, we can often infer that someone has agency, is moving towards a goal, or is feeling a particular emotion. Recently, there has been renewed interest in the attribution of agency and the understanding of goal-directed behavior, following a rapid increase in empirical discoveries leading to the conclusion that an intuitive understanding of social others is an early-developing part of our human na ... More
As adults, we can quickly interpret minimal visual information as a cue that something is animate, as when we briefly catch sight of a mouse darting from hiding place to hiding place. With a mere glance, we can often infer that someone has agency, is moving towards a goal, or is feeling a particular emotion. Recently, there has been renewed interest in the attribution of agency and the understanding of goal-directed behavior, following a rapid increase in empirical discoveries leading to the conclusion that an intuitive understanding of social others is an early-developing part of our human nature, and may be compromised in certain clinical populations, namely autism. This book presents current research in the interdisciplinary field of social perception, including the perception of biological motion, the perception of animacy, attributions of intentionality, and the development of these psychological processes. Authors include researchers who mainly see themselves as vision scientists, those who are developmental psychologists, those who are known for their research in autism, and those who take neuroscientific approaches. The theoretical frameworks and methodological paradigms presented cut across four areas: Developmental Science, Evolutionary Psychology, Neuroscience, and Clinical Approaches.
Keywords:
Biological Motion,
Animacy,
Intentionality,
Neuroscience,
Developmental Psychology
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780262019279 |
| Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: May 2014 |
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262019279.001.0001 |
