A comparative study on body perception mechanisms underlying visual perspective taking

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K12739
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 90030:Cognitive science-related
• Research Institution: Hosei University
• Principal Investigator: Matsuno Toyomi 法政大学, 経済学部, 教授 (90588047)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 身体知覚 / 視点取得

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study investigated the perception of social stimuli (bodies and their interaction) in capuchin monkeys to provide insight into the perceptual basis of social cognitive abilities such as perspective-taking. The first study investigated the perceptual sensitivity to social interactions with others' bodies. The second study investigated the perceptual discrimination characteristics of the implied interaction between an agent and an object. The third study examined whether or not the visual discrimination of others' actions generalizes to different observation perspectives in capuchin monkeys. The results suggest that the monkey's perceptual system has a sensitivity to the spatial arrangement of social stimuli similar to that of humans, while monkeys did not form a view-invariant representation of the actions.

Free Research Field

比較認知科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

他者の心的状態を推測する優れた社会認知能は言語と並んで「ヒトとはどのような動物か」という普遍的な問いへの答えの一端を担う重要な心的情報処理過程である。そのような社会的認知機能を支える社会的情報の知覚的特性について、ヒトとヒト以外の霊長類との間の共通性と相違の両方があることを示した本研究の結果は、高次の認知機能についてのヒトの固有性について考察する際、より低次の知覚情報処理を含めた認知情報処理システム全体を通じた近縁種との比較が重要であることを示唆している。