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Human Social-Perceptual Mechanisms
The Neuroscience of some very mild superpowers.
Rick van der Zwan
Social perceptions are made in very high performance environments …
…and we all are, for the most part, very expert observers (even if we don’t know it).
Indeed, so good are we at social perceptions that they amount to very mild super powers!
Very mild super powers.
Happy Sad Angry Scared
Very mild super powers.
Very mild super powers.
• Until recently, social interactions always involved physical proximity.
Physical proximity is not a feature of emerging social environments...but people seek sooner or later to be in the company of those with whom they interact!
Tanit Sakakini
Very mild super powers – an aside.
“For over a century, pundits have been predicting that new forms of communication would make urban life irrelevant…That didn’t happen.”
“More recently, faxes, email, and videoconferencing were all supposed to eliminate the need for face-to-face meetings, yet business travel has soared over the last 20 years.”
Glaeser 2012
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Year 2000 - 2011
Very mild super powers – an aside.
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Very mild super powers – an aside.
So, why do people want to be face-to-face with each other? What is it about being face-to-face that is important for humans? What can that tell us about neural processes? And what are the implications?
Very mild super powers.
The aim of this presentation: • to describe the perceptual and neural correlates of social
environments.
1. How high performance is “high performance”? 2. Is there any real meaning to the notion of pathways? 3. The real challenge – emerging social environments!
Aim
High
What do I mean by High Performance? How important are social cues?
High Performance Social Environments
Galago Aotus Otolemur
Lemur Loris Tarsius
Pongo Pan Homo
monochromat
dichromat
trichromat
Lets talk about mind reading!
High Performance Social Environments
monochromats dichromats trichromats
3 species 10 species
22 species
increasing social cooperation
High Performance Social Environments
High Performance Social Environments
High Performance Social Environments
15 000 000
1 January
8 000 000
14 July
5 800 000
12 August
200 000
26 December
500 000
18 December
3 600 000
18 October
2 500 000
31 October Date
M.Y.A
1/1 31/12
High Performance Social Environments
van der Zwan & Brooks (submitted)
Tamir & Mitchell 2012
High Performance Social Environments
So, colour vision is really important and not just for picking fruit... but so are lots of other cues.
High Performance Social Environments
Olfaction and olfactory cues
Olfactory cues inform socially relevant judgements:
High Performance Social Environments
Ebster & Kirk-Smith 2005
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no odour male odour
Hedonic Assessment
of Magazines
more enjoyable
less enjoyable
neutral
male
female
High Performance Social Environments
Olfaction and olfactory cues
Olfactory cues inform socially relevant judgements: • Attractiveness • Trustworthiness • Confidence • Social/Competitive Dominance • Health • Fertility status …..and probably lots of stuff we don’t know about yet.
High Performance Social Environments
So colour vision, audition, olfaction, motion processing, form processing all mediate social perceptions.
Social information is very high value.
It is a multidimensional perceptual skill.
High Performance Social Environments
And it is multidimensional to
reduce ambiguity.
Is there any real meaning to the notion of pathways?
Humans are adept “thin slicers” (Ambady & Rosenthal 1992)
What do you mean by “pathway”?
We can discriminate, in a moment (< 100msec), an individual’s • Sex • Gender • Age • Race • Trustworthiness • Social Status • Vulnerability • Dominance • Competence • Attractiveness …….but accurately only when we are in their presence
What do you mean by “pathway”?
What do you mean by “pathway”?
What do you mean by “pathway”?
What do you mean by “pathway”?
What do you mean by “pathway”?
Bidet-Caulet et al. 2005
What do you mean by “pathway”?
What do you mean by “pathway”?
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Gender continuum
Proportion
"Male"
responses
female ambiguous male
male bias
What do you mean by “pathway”?
Auditory Processes Mediating Sex Perceptions: An Auditory Sex Continuum
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Gender continuum
Proportion
"Male"
responses
What do you mean by “pathway”?
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gender continuum
proportion
"male"
responses
Visual only
Female foot-strikes
van der Zwan et al. 2009
What do you mean by “pathway”?
no olfactory cue
male sweat cue
Hacker et al. 2013
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Gender continuum
Proportion
"Male"
responses
What do you mean by “pathway”?
Podrebarac et al 2013
What do you mean by “pathway”?
So, what do we mean when we use the term “pathway”? Perceptions are multisensory experiences, even if we are not aware of the cues. And in the high performance arena of social interactions, multisensory signals are everything!
What do you mean by “pathway”?
Emerging Social Environments
The Challenge: Building High-Performance Virtual Social Environments.
Can we model, with accuracy, the integration of socially relevant cues to create high performance virtual social environments? How do emerging environments overcome the tyranny of distance? Can we use what we know to enhance performances in real environments?
The Mollon Doctrine “If you can adapt it, it’s there” (1974, p.479)
Adapting to this make this look like this
+ male scent
Adapting to this make this look like this
+ female footsteps
What do you mean by “pathway”?
increasing dominance, identity constant
changing Identity, dominance constant
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