Development of the psychological underpinnings of the perception of social agents

人类有复杂的心理过程来探测和照顾生物。理解构成生命感知的心理过程是理解人与人之间互动的先决条件。理解这些知觉和注意过程的发展有助于我们理解我们对他人的感知和关注的形成和可塑性。也许最基本的是理解我们是如何区分有生命和无生命的物体的。我们与之互动的人和不与之互动的人。这项研究计划的目的是探索成人的功能和这些心理过程的发展轨迹，并比较患有和不患有自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)的人群的这些过程。对动画实体的检测和关注是所有其他互动的基础，无论是在发育过程中还是在实时成人处理中。这种分类发生在视觉处理的早期，并在生命周期的早期发展。这里描述的一项研究测试了婴儿注意动画视觉对象优先于其他视觉对象的证据，另一项测试暗示婴儿使用该测试来将运动归类为动画。两项研究探索了成年观察者的生命知觉：一项测试了对有生命物体的感知是否是绝对的，另一项研究比较了有生命和无生命类别的加工。其中两项研究探讨了患有自闭症谱系障碍的群体的这种感知。这项研究计划的目标包括：1)测试关于什么视觉线索吸引婴儿对有生命物体的注意的具体假设；2)测试婴儿是否注意到有生命物体而不是无生命物体，即使没有物体在运动；3)测试成年人对有生命物体和无生命物体的分类；以及4)测试患有自闭症的人的智商与有生命的感觉之间的关系是否比没有自闭症的人更大。人类进化出了特定的、设计良好的感知和注意工具。对生命力的感知是所有互动的基础。总而言之，这些研究旨在阐明社会认知背后的人类心理。好处将是基本的和实际的：我们对这些重要心理过程的基本理解将得到加强，我们将对自闭症患者的知觉和注意力差异有更好的理解。了解典型儿童和自闭症儿童的这些过程的发展，可能会让我们更好地理解这些群体的社交信息是如何以不同的方式处理的。预测与智商的关联可能有助于揭示自闭症患者是如何解决社交认知问题的。这种理解不仅有助于教师和家长更好地支持社交策略的获得，还将帮助神经典型患者理解并实时与ASD患者互动。

Humans have complex psychological processes designed for detecting and attending to living things. Understanding the psychological processes that underpin the perception of animacy is prerequisite to understanding interactions between people. Understanding the development of these perceptual and attentional processes sheds light on the formation and malleability of our perception of and attention to others. Perhaps most fundamental is an understanding of how we discriminate animate and inanimate objects. those we interact with and those we do not. The purpose of this research program is to explore both adult functioning and the developmental trajectory of these psychological processes, and to compare these processes across groups with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Detection of and attention to animate entities are the foundation of all other interactions both developmentally and in real-time adult processing. This categorization happens early in visual processing and develops early in the lifespan. One study described here tests for evidence that infants attend to animate visual objects preferentially over other visual objects, and another tests which cues infants use in order to categorize motion as animate. Two studies explore animacy perception in adult observers: One tests whether the perception of animate objects is categorical, and the other compares processing between animate and inanimate categories. Two of the studies probe such perception in groups with autism spectrum disorders. The goals of this research program include 1) testing specific hypotheses about what visual cues draw infants' attention to animate objects, 2) testing whether infants attend to animate objects over inanimate objects, even when no objects are in motion, 3) testing adults' categorization of animate and inanimate objects and 4) testing whether the relationship between IQ and the perception of animacy is greater among those with ASD than among those without ASD. Humans have evolved specific, well-designed perceptual and attentional tools. The perception of animacy is foundational to all interactions. Together, these studies are designed to shed light on the human psychology underlying social perception. Benefits will be both basic and practical: Our basic understanding of these important psychological processes will be enhanced, and we will have a better understanding of the perceptual and attentional differences in those with ASD. Understanding the development of these processes in typical children and in those with ASD may allow us to better understand how social information is processed differently across these groups. The predicted association with IQ may shed light on how people with ASD solve social cognitive problems. This understanding will not only help teachers and parents better support the acquisition of social strategies, but it will help neurotypical people understand and interact with those with ASD in real time.