People Watching: Social, Perceptual, and Neurophysiological Studies of Body Perception (Advances in Visual Cognition)

The Human Body Has Long Been A Rich Source Of Inspiration For The Arts, And Artists Have Long Recognized The Body's Special Status. While The Scientific Study Of Body Perception Also Has An Important History, Recent Technological Advances Have Triggered An Explosion Of Research On The Visual Perception Of The Human Body In Motion, Or As It Is Traditionally Called, Biological Motion Perception. Now Reaching A Point Of Burgeoning Inter-disciplinary Focus, Biological Motion Perception Research Is Poised To Transform Our Understanding Of Person Construal. Indeed, Several Factors Highlight A Privileged Role For The Human Body As One Of The Most Critical Classes Of Stimuli Affecting Social Perception. Human Bodies In Motion, For Example, Are Among The Most Frequent Moving Stimulus In Our Environment. They Can Be Readily Perceived At A Physical Distance Or Visual Vantage That Precludes Face Perception. Moreover, Body Motion Conveys Meaningful Psychological Information Such As Social Categories, Emotion State, Intentions, And Underlying Dispositions. Thus, Body Perception Appears To Serve As A First-pass Filter For A Vast Array Of Social Judgments From The Routine (e.g., Perceived Friendliness In Interactions) To The Grave (e.g., Perceived Threat By Law Enforcement). This Book Provides An Exciting Integration Of Theory And Findings That Clarify How The Human Body Is Perceived By Observers. Introduction -- Making Great Strides : Advances In Research On The Perception Of The Human Body -- Gunnar Johansson, Events, And Biological Motion -- Psychophysics -- Top-down Versus Bottom-up Processing Of Biological Motion -- Seeing You Through Me : Creating Self-other Correspondences For Body Perception -- What Does Biological Motion Really Mean? : Differentiating Visual Percepts Of Human, Animal, And Non-biological Motions -- Shape-independent Processing Of Biological Motion -- Action Perception From A Common Coding Perspective -- Development And Individual Differences -- Developmental Origins Of Biological Motion Perception -- Experience And The Perception Of Biological Motion -- Variability In The Visual Perception Of Human Motion As A Function Of The Observer's Autistic Traits -- Development Of Body Motion Processing In Normalcy And Pathology -- Social Perspectives -- Person (mis)perception On The Biased Representation Of The Human Body -- It's The Way You Walk Kinematic Specification Of Vulnerability To Attack -- Coordinating Social Beings In Motion -- Functionalism Redux : How Adaptive Action Constrains Perception, Simulation, And Evolved Intuitions -- Neurophysiology -- Neural Mechanisms For Action Observation -- Neural Mechanisms For Biological Motion And Animacy -- The How, When, And Why Of Configural Processing In The Perception Of Human Movement -- Brain Mechanisms For Social Perception : Moving Towards An Understanding Of Autism -- From Body Perception To Action Preparation : A Distributed Neural System For Viewing Bodily Expressions Of Emotion -- Sensory And Motor Brain Areas Subserving Biological Motion Perception : Neuropsychological And Neuroimaging Studies -- Computational Mechanisms Of The Visual Processing Of Action Stimuli. Edited By Kerri L. Johnson, Maggie Shiffrar. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.