Not all things are social for everyone: How different people see sociality

Things that are social for one person can be perceived differently by others.

A groundbreaking study conducted by Dartmouth University sheds light on the fascinating nature of human perception when it comes to social interactions. 

Let's learn more about this.

An experiment on how people perceive social things

Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the research delves into the brain's response to social versus random information, uncovering intriguing insights.

Traditionally, humans are inclined to perceive social elements in even the most unlikely contexts, such as detecting faces in natural formations or attributing social interactions to simple shapes. 

Previous studies exploring social perception have often relied on predefined classifications of social versus random motion. 

However, this study from Dartmouth University takes a novel approach, employing participants' subjective reports of whether they perceive animations as social or not.

How it was conducted

The participants were asked to watch a series of animations featuring shapes in motion while their brain activity was monitored through functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The results unveiled a fascinating phenomenon: participants were naturally biased towards perceiving information as social, even when the animations were intentionally designed to be random. 

This inclination to see social interactions in various stimuli highlights the significance of social connections in human cognition.

The researchers observed that the brain's response to social content occurs early in both time and cortical hierarchy, primarily in regions associated with visual information processing. 

These findings indicate that the brain highly prioritizes social information.
 

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• 6 August 2023

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