Perception of Faces and Bodies

Abstract

Abstract Much of social cognitive science aims to understand how people construe, remember, and represent other people—social perception. Increasingly, social cognition does this using visual depictions of other people. This approach reveals the mechanisms by which observers form spontaneous impressions of others from merely a glimpse of the face or body. This chapter first reviews several of the central tenets of social cognitive research focused on face perception that have endured since the original volume of this handbook. Next, it reviews several more recent advances in social perception research. This includes a more dynamic understanding of social perception processes, the innovative and generative power of data-driven reverse correlation techniques, a growing emphasis on the visual perception of groups—ensemble perception, and an expansion from focusing on faces to include body perception and other forms of social sensory perception.