Motion Perception: Social

Kerri Johnson

Perceivers are highly sensitive to the movements of objects in the environment. These cues are readily perceived, and such perception is served by distinct neural mechanisms. Yet one class of motion perception appears to be special—the perception of other people moving in the environment, or biological motion. Indeed, the perception of biological motion is an inherently social process. Unique patterns of biological motion support the perception of domains that have been and continue to be of keen importance from a social psychological perspective on person perception, and the basic perceptions of biological motion are susceptible to modulation from high-level social processes. This entry will cover the background, perceiving social categories, identities, and internal states, and how social processes contextualize visual perception as they relate to social motion perception. The scientific study of biological motion perception enjoys a long history, dating back to the 19th century. Yet research in the perception ...

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