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Ip K, Kusyk N, Stephen ID, Brooks KR. Did you skip leg day? The neural mechanisms of muscle perception for body parts. Cortex 2024; 171:75-89. [PMID: 37980724 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.10.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2023] [Revised: 09/18/2023] [Accepted: 10/02/2023] [Indexed: 11/21/2023]
Abstract
While the neural mechanisms underpinning the perception of muscularity are poorly understood, recent progress has been made using the psychophysical technique of visual adaptation. Prolonged visual exposure to high (low) muscularity bodies causes subsequently viewed bodies to appear less (more) muscular, revealing a recalibration of the neural populations encoding muscularity. Here, we use visual adaptation to further elucidate the tuning properties of the neural processes underpinning muscle perception for the upper and lower halves of the body. Participants manipulated the apparent muscularity of upper and lower bodies until they appeared 'normal', prior to and following exposure to a series of top/bottom halves of bodies that were either high or low in muscularity. In Experiment 1, participants were adapted to isolated own-gender body halves from one of four conditions; increased (muscularity) upper (body half), increased lower, decreased upper, or decreased lower. Despite the presence of muscle aftereffects when the body halves the participants viewed and manipulated were congruent, there was only weak evidence of muscle aftereffect transfer between the upper and lower halves of the body. Aftereffects were significantly weaker when body halves were incongruent, implying minimal overlap in the neural mechanisms encoding muscularity for body half. Experiment 2 examined the generalisability of Experiment 1's findings in a more ecologically valid context using whole-body stimuli, producing a similar pattern of results as Experiment 1, but with no evidence of cross-adaptation. Taken together, the findings are most consistent with muscle-encoding neural populations that are body-half selective. As visual adaptation has been implicated in cases of body size and shape misperception, the present study furthers our current understanding of how these perceptual inaccuracies, particularly those involving muscularity, are developed, maintained, and may potentially be treated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Keefe Ip
- School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
| | - Nicole Kusyk
- School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Ian D Stephen
- NTU Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England, UK
| | - Kevin R Brooks
- School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia; Perception and Action Research Centre (PARC), Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia; Lifespan Health & Wellbeing Research Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Ambroziak KB, Bofill MA, Azañón E, Longo MR. Perceptual aftereffects of adiposity transfer from hands to whole bodies. Exp Brain Res 2023; 241:2371-2379. [PMID: 37620437 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-023-06686-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2023] [Accepted: 08/08/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023]
Abstract
Adaptation aftereffects for features such as identity and gender have been shown to transfer between faces and bodies, and faces and body parts, i.e. hands. However, no studies have investigated transfer of adaptation aftereffects between whole bodies and body parts. The present study investigated whether visual adaptation aftereffects transfer between hands and whole bodies in the context of adiposity judgements (i.e. how thin or fat a body is). On each trial, participants had to decide whether the body they saw was thinner or fatter than average. Participants performed the task before and after exposure to a thin/fat hand. Consistent with body adaptation studies, after exposure to a slim hand participants judged subsequently presented bodies to be fatter than after adaptation to a fat hand. These results suggest that there may be links between visual representations of body adiposity for whole bodies and body parts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Klaudia B Ambroziak
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, UK.
| | - Marina Araujo Bofill
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, UK
| | - Elena Azañón
- Institute of Psychology, Otto-Von-Guericke University, Universitätsplatz 2, 39016, Magdeburg, Germany
- Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, Universitätsplatz 2, 39106, Magdeburg, Germany
- Department of Behavioral Neurology, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Brenneckestraße 6, 39118, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Matthew R Longo
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, UK.
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Clifford CWG, Palmer CJ. Adaptation to the Direction of Others' Gaze: A Review. Front Psychol 2018; 9:2165. [PMID: 30473675 PMCID: PMC6237883 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02165] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2018] [Accepted: 10/22/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The direction of another person’s gaze provides us with a strong cue to their intentions and future actions, and, correspondingly, the human visual system has evolved to extract information about others’ gaze from the sensory stream. The perception of gaze is a remarkably plastic process: adaptation to a particular direction of gaze over a matter of seconds or minutes can cause marked aftereffects in our sense of where other people are looking. In this review, we first discuss the measurement, specificity, and neural correlates of gaze aftereffects. We then examine how studies that have explored the perceptual and neural determinants of gaze aftereffects have provided key insights into the nature of how other people’s gaze direction is represented within the visual hierarchy. This includes the level of perceptual representation of gaze direction (e.g., relating to integrated vs. local facial features) and the interaction of this system with higher-level social-cognitive functions, such as theory of mind. Moreover, computational modeling of data from behavioral studies of gaze adaptation allows us to make inferences about the functional principles that govern the neural encoding of gaze direction. This in turn provides a foundation for testing computational theories of neuropsychiatric conditions in which gaze processing is compromised, such as autism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Colin W G Clifford
- School of Psychology, University of New South Wales Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Colin J Palmer
- School of Psychology, University of New South Wales Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Ghazali AS, Ham J, Barakova E, Markopoulos P. The influence of social cues in persuasive social robots on psychological reactance and compliance. COMPUTERS IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2018.05.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/16/2022]
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Cooney SM, Brady N, Ryan K. Spatial orienting of attention to social cues is modulated by cue type and gender of viewer. Exp Brain Res 2017; 235:1481-1490. [DOI: 10.1007/s00221-017-4909-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2016] [Accepted: 02/09/2017] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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Moors P, Verfaillie K, Daems T, Pomianowska I, Germeys F. The Effect of Head Orientation on Perceived Gaze Direction: Revisiting Gibson and Pick (1963) and Cline (1967). Front Psychol 2016; 7:1191. [PMID: 27559325 PMCID: PMC4979522 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01191] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2015] [Accepted: 07/27/2016] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Two biases in perceived gaze direction have been observed when eye and head orientation are not aligned. An overshoot effect indicates that perceived gaze direction is shifted away from head orientation (i.e., a repulsive effect), whereas a towing effect indicates that perceived gaze direction falls in between head and eye orientation (i.e., an attraction effect). In the 60s, three influential papers have been published with respect to the effect of head orientation on perceived gaze direction (Gibson and Pick, 1963; Cline, 1967; Anstis et al., 1969). Throughout the years, the results of two of these (Gibson and Pick, 1963; Cline, 1967) have been interpreted differently by a number of authors. In this paper, we critically discuss potential sources of confusion that have led to differential interpretations of both studies. At first sight, the results of Cline (1967), despite having been a major topic of discussion, unambiguously seem to indicate a towing effect whereas Gibson and Pick’s (1963) results seem to be the most ambiguous, although they have never been questioned in the literature. To shed further light on this apparent inconsistency, we repeated the critical experiments reported in both studies. Our results indicate an overshoot effect in both studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pieter Moors
- Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Department of Brain and Cognition, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium
| | - Karl Verfaillie
- Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Department of Brain and Cognition, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium
| | - Thalia Daems
- Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Department of Brain and Cognition, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium
| | - Iwona Pomianowska
- The Leon Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre Lodz, Poland
| | - Filip Germeys
- Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Department of Brain and Cognition, KU LeuvenLeuven, Belgium; Department of Work and Organisation Studies, KU LeuvenLeuven, Belgium
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Cooney SM, O’Shea A, Brady N. Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0141411. [PMID: 26509881 PMCID: PMC4625052 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141411] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2015] [Accepted: 10/08/2015] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Of the many hand gestures that we use in communication pointing is one of the most common and powerful in its role as a visual referent that directs joint attention. While numerous studies have examined the developmental trajectory of pointing production and comprehension, very little consideration has been given to adult visual perception of hand pointing gestures. Across two studies, we use a visual adaptation paradigm to explore the mechanisms underlying the perception of proto-declarative hand pointing. Twenty eight participants judged whether 3D modeled hands pointed, in depth, at or to the left or right of a target (test angles of 0°, 0.75° and 1.5° left and right) before and after adapting to either hands or arrows which pointed 10° to the right or left of the target. After adaptation, the perception of the pointing direction of the test hands shifted with respect to the adapted direction, revealing separate mechanisms for coding right and leftward pointing directions. While there were subtle yet significant differences in the strength of adaptation to hands and arrows, both cues gave rise to a similar pattern of aftereffects. The considerable cross category adaptation found when arrows were used as adapting stimuli and the asymmetry in aftereffects to left and right hands suggests that the adaptation aftereffects are likely driven by simple orientation cues, inherent in the morphological structure of the hand, and not dependent on the biological status of the hand pointing cue. This finding provides evidence in support of a common neural mechanism that processes these directional social cues, a mechanism that may be blind to the biological status of the stimulus category.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Maeve Cooney
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
| | - Alanna O’Shea
- School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
| | - Nuala Brady
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
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