[Article] Hierarchical organization of social action features along the lateral visual pathway

summary: The first study investigates the hierarchical organization of social action features along the lateral visual stream, revealing that the brain processes increasingly complex features, from low-level motion in early visual areas to high-level communicative actions in the superior temporal sulcus (STS). The second study demonstrates a shared neural code for representing both human actions and object events, suggesting that the brain uses a common neural mechanism to interpret the physics of interactions, independent of animacy. Together, these findings provide new insights into the neural architecture underlying social perception and event understanding, highlighting both specialized and generalized processes in the human brain.

Karakose-Akbiyik, Seda, Alfonso Caramazza, and Moritz F. Wurm. “A shared neural code for the physics of actions and object events.” Nature Communications 14.1 (2023): 3316. (link)

McMahon, Emalie, Michael F. Bonner, and Leyla Isik. “Hierarchical organization of social action features along the lateral visual pathway.” Current Biology 33.23 (2023): 5035-5047. (link)