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Neural mechanisms of social attention
Authors:
Nummenmaa L. & CALDER, A.J.
Reference:
Trends in Cognitive Science, 13(3), 135-143
Year of publication:
2009
CBU number:
6928
Abstract:
Social attention is conveyed primarily by gaze, but also by head and body orientation. These cues not only signal a seen agent’s direction of attention but are also used to infer their current goals and intentions. Here we review recent research showing that different gaze, head and body orientations are represented by distinct neural mechanisms, and show that a statistical summary of recent neuroimaging studies reveals a widespread neural network for gaze processing. We discuss how this network subserves visual analysis of social attention direction, imitative attention shifts, and mental state attributions from social attention cues. We also review new research suggesting that the pSTS region responds to the inferred intentionality of social cues, and consider the development of the gaze perception system.