| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to determine if body stimuli are uniquely processed by the
visual recognition system. First, my results supported past findings showing that body processing
differs from object processing (e.g., cars, chairs, houses). However, body processing depended
on the presence/absence of a head. Second, the nature of appearance impacted observers’
performance such that discrimination was better for real than artificial bodies. Finally, I
examined the impact of body appearance on event-related potential (ERP) responses, specifically
the P100 and N170, and found that amplitudes elicited by real headless bodies was significantly
larger than amplitudes elicited by all other variations in body appearance. In general, these
results suggest the existence of a body recognition system that processes body images varying in
visual appearance. However, this system may be more tuned to bodies that most resemble natural
appearance and less tuned to bodies that deviate away from it. | en_US |
