communicative interactions improve visual detection of biological motion交际互动提高生物运动的视觉检测.pdfVIP

Communicative Interactions Improve Visual Detection of Biological Motion 1,2 1 2 1 2 Valeria Manera *, Cristina Becchio , Ben Schouten , Bruno G. Bara , Karl Verfaillie 1 Department of Psychology, Center for Cognitive Science, University of Turin, Turin, Italy, 2 Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Department of Psychology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Abstract Background: In the context of interacting activities requiring close-body contact such as fighting or dancing, the actions of one agent can be used to predict the actions of the second agent [1]. In the present study, we investigated whether interpersonal predictive coding extends to interactive activities – such as communicative interactions - in which no physical contingency is implied between the movements of the interacting individuals. Methodology/Principal Findings: Participants observed point-light displays of two agents (A and B) performing separate actions. In the communicative condition, the action performed by agent B responded to a communicative gesture performed by agent A. In the individual condition, agent A’s communicative action was substituted with a non- communicative action. Using a simultaneous masking detection task, we demonstrate that observing the communicative gesture performed by agent A enhanced visual discrimination of agent B. Conclusions/Significance: Our finding complements and extends previous evidence for interpersonal predictive coding, suggesting that the communicative gestures of one agent can serve as a predictor for the expected actions of the respondent, even if no physical co