| It's all in your head: why is the body inversion effect abolished for headless bodies? | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 20515202 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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It has been recently argued that human bodies are processed by a specialized processing mechanism. Central evidence was that body inversion reduces recognition abilities (body inversion effect; BIE) as much as it does for faces, but more than for other objects. Here we showed that the BIE is markedly reduced for headless bodies and examined the reason for this unexpected finding. Two alternative hypotheses were examined. Either the BIE is reduced for any type of incomplete body, or the head plays a special role in discrimination of body posture. Results show that omission of other body parts (leg or arms) did not influence the magnitude of the BIE relative to complete bodies. Analogous manipulations with faces did not influence the magnitude of the face inversion effect. Importantly, similar to effects we found for headless bodies, discrimination abilities for upright bodies and the BIE were markedly reduced for complete bodies that did not differ in head posture. We conclude that intact discrimination of body posture relies heavily on the head position. Our findings also imply that the BIE and the face inversion effect may be generated by different mechanisms. |
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Authors:
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Galit Yovel; Tatiana Pelc; Ida Lubetzky |
Publication Detail:
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Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance Volume: 36 ISSN: 1939-1277 ISO Abbreviation: J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform Publication Date: 2010 Jun |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 2010-06-02 Completed Date: 2010-09-24 Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 7502589 Medline TA: J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform Country: United States |
Other Details:
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Languages: eng Pagination: 759-67 Citation Subset: IM |
Affiliation:
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Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978 Israel. |
Export Citation:
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| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
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Adult Discrimination (Psychology)* Face* Female Head* Human Body* Humans Male Orientation* Pattern Recognition, Visual* Posture Reaction Time Young Adult |
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
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