Understanding the movements of others is critical for a wide range of functions such as detecting prey and predators, inferring the goals and intentions of others, and engendering emotional responses, such as feeling compassion and empathy toward others. The investigators will use a range of complementary methods to understand how the human brain detects and interprets the body language of others. For example, body movements can be characterized by very minimalist visual representations, consisting of a dozen points of light attached to the joints on the body seen in darkness (a method used in many motion capture systems). In addition, the investigators will use high-resolution videos to link the work to the field of social cognition by determining how processing is affected when the movements are produced by an artificial agent like a robot, rather than by a human.
Understanding the perceptual and neural basis for body movement processing is essential to an account of how humans negotiate objects and events in the world and can inform fields as wide-ranging as cognitive science, neuroscience, robotics, brain-computer interfaces, social cognition, technology design, visual arts, and computer vision. In addition, social artificial agents such as humanoid robots and virtual animated characters are becoming increasingly common in a range of domains such as education, defense, healthcare and entertainment. This research can help guide the design of these interactive technologies. The investigators also aim to further science and education through recruitment and retention of young people, especially minorities underrepresented in science. Since early engagement is critical for this goal, the focus will be on the development of hands-on research and computation skills for high school and undergraduate students.
