Electronic versions

Documents

  • Left_EBA_and_sensitivity_to_social_interactions_Rfinal

    Accepted author manuscript, 10.2 MB, Word document

    Embargo ends: 4/01/25

    Licence: CC BY-NC-ND Show licence

  • Converging evidence

    Final published version, 1.9 MB, PDF document

    Licence: CC BY Show licence

Links

DOI

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.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages9
JournalCurrent Biology
Volume34
Early online date4 Jan 2024
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 4 Jan 2024

Total downloads

No data available
View graph of relations