August 2012
Volume 12, Issue 9
Free
Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract  |   August 2012
Heritability of local but not global biological motion processing in the human brain
Author Affiliations
  • Ying Wang
    Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Li Wang
    Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Qian Xu
    Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Dong Liu
    Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Sheng He
    Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
  • Yi Jiang
    Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Journal of Vision August 2012, Vol.12, 648. doi:https://doi.org/10.1167/12.9.648
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      Ying Wang, Li Wang, Qian Xu, Dong Liu, Sheng He, Yi Jiang; Heritability of local but not global biological motion processing in the human brain. Journal of Vision 2012;12(9):648. https://doi.org/10.1167/12.9.648.

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      © ARVO (1962-2015); The Authors (2016-present)

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Abstract

Biological motion enjoys privileged processing in the human visual system. Whether it is endowed by nature or shaped through postnatal experience remains controversial. Here we provide the first behavioral genetic evidence upon this issue using a classic twin design. We specifically aimed to examine the heritability of two fundamental components (i.e., the local motion and the global configuration) in support of biological motion perception. The local motion component was extracted by spatially scrambling intact point-light walkers, whereas the global component was obtained through embedding the point-light walkers in dynamic noises composed of pure local biological motion cues. Results revealed a reliable genetic contribution to individual variations in local but not global biological motion perception with the latter largely explained by environmental factors. Taken together, our findings point to an innate mechanism disposed to the processing of local biological motion cues. Men may learn to interpret the global configurations of biological motion, but their sensitivities to its inherent kinetics are mainly hardwired in the brain.

Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2012

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