Person perception involves functional integration between the extrastriate body area and temporal pole

Abstract

The majority of human neuroscience research has focussed on understanding functional organisation within segregated patches of cortex. The ventral visual stream has been associated with the detection of physical features such as faces and body parts, whereas the theory-of-mind network has been associated with making inferences about mental states and underlying character, such as whether someone is friendly, selfish, or generous. To date, however, it is largely unknown how such distinct processing components integrate neural signals. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and connectivity analyses, we investigated the contribution of functional integration to social perception. During scanning, participants observed bodies that had previously been associated with trait-based or neutral information. Additionally, we independently localised the body perception and theory-of-mind networks. We demonstrate that when observing someone who cues the recall of stored social knowledge compared to non-social knowledge, a node in the ventral visual stream (extrastriate body area) shows greater coupling with part of the theory-of-mind network (temporal pole). These results show that functional connections provide an interface between perceptual and inferential processing components, thus providing neurobiological evidence that supports the view that understanding the visual environment involves interplay between conceptual knowledge and perceptual processing.

Neural integration in body perception

“…It is also consistent with recent work in the domain of face perception, whereby links between the ventral visual stream and temporal poles have been demonstrated to underpin the retrieval of social knowledge that is associated with faces (Wang et al, 2017). By contrast, recall of social knowledge that is prompted by body shape involves links between EBA and temporal poles (Greven & Ramsey, 2017a;Greven et al, 2018). One interpretation is that when bodies cue social inferences, the detection of body parts in EBA (Taylor et al, 2007) triggers an associated representation of stored social knowledge in temporal poles (Olsen et al, 2013).…”

“…Using body perception and theory-of-mind localisers, a series of studies has investigated the relationship between body-selective patches in ventral temporal cortex and the theory-of-mind network during body perception ( Figure 2D; Greven et al, 2016;Greven & Ramsey, 2017a, b). Each study investigated a distinct component of social information processing during body perception, including the formation (Greven et al, 2016) and recall (Greven & Ramsey, 2017a) of impressions, the impact of group bias on body perception (Greven & Ramsey, 2017b), as well as person inferences that are based on body shape alone (Greven et al, 2018). The broad hypothesis across these experiments was the same: social information processing during body perception will not be restricted to univariate responses in segregated networks, but will also be indexed by integration between body-selective and theory-of-mind networks.…”

“…As such, we have a rich set of stored person associations, which we rely upon to guide social exchanges. To assess recall of social knowledge that is prompted by body perception, in a subsequent study Greven & Ramsey (2017a) trained participants before scanning to associate different bodies with traitbased or neutral information. During scanning participants viewed the same bodies and were asked to form an impression of the individual.…”

Neural networks supporting social evaluation of bodies based on body shape

“…To date, however, research that investigates how the body network exchanges signals with the ToM-network during body perception is limited to two studies ( Figure 1). Brain regions associated with theory-of-mind show stronger functional coupling with body-selective patches when observing a body and making a trait-based inference about the person compared to a trait-neutral inference (Greven et al, 2016;Greven and Ramsey, 2017a). These studies suggest that body and ToM networks may exchange signals to form impressions (Greven et al, 2016) and recall previously stored social knowledge (Greven and Ramsey, 2017a).…”

White Matter and Social Cognition

“…They overlap in regards to anatomy (e.g. AMG, IFG, STS/TPJ, see Figure 2) and interact with each other during many social tasks (Barrett & Satpute, 2013;Becchio et al, 2012;Greven & Ramsey, 2017;Sperduti, Guionnet, Fossati, & Nadel, 2014;Spunt, Satpute, & Lieberman, 2011;Zaki, Hennigan, Weber, & Ochsner, 2010). The way we classified each social task or process into three brain networks might be debatable, and there may be other ways to divide up social cognition.…”