UCLA

In everyday social interactions, humans rely on visual cues to form impressions, evaluate, and recognize others. Both bodies and faces serve as uniquely rich sources of information for these processes. While face perception has been extensively researched, the study of other visual stimuli, including bodies, has been comparatively limited. Therefore, face perception research serves as a foundation for studying other visual stimuli. Due to recent technological advances, studying bodies is more plausible than ever before. Moreover, while decades of research have centered on assessing individual targets, the prevalence of group settings in our natural social encounters underscores the importance of extending social cognitive research to encompass group perception. Recognizing these dual needs, my dissertation (1) provides a comprehensive review of the body perception literature to identify key areas necessitating further exploration and (2) addresses some of the identified gaps by establishing a publicly accessible database of biological motion (point light display) stimuli for scientific researchers and experimentally testing the impact of body motion on individual and group target perception. Through these efforts, my dissertation advances our understanding of both individual and group social cognition by bridging crucial gaps in existing research.