TY - JOUR

T1 - Converging evidence that left extrastriate body area supports visual sensitivity to social interactions

AU - Gandolfo, Marco

AU - Abassi, Etienne

AU - Balgova, Eva

AU - Papeo, Liuba

AU - Downing, Paul

AU - Koldewyn, Kami

PY - 2024/1/4

Y1 - 2024/1/4

N2 - 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 behavioural marker of visual sensitivity to interactions: categorisation 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.

AB - 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 behavioural marker of visual sensitivity to interactions: categorisation 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.

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.009

DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.009

M3 - Article

VL - 34

JO - Current Biology

JF - Current Biology

SN - 0960-9822

ER -