Fig. 2.
Experiment measuring brain activation in response to a stranger initiating or avoiding social interaction. Participants viewed an animated character approaching down a virtual hallway, who shifted his gaze either toward or away from the subject. In both situations, the animated sequence evoked activation in the right superior temporal sulcus (STS) region and the right fusiform gyrus. The graph at bottom shows the time courses of activation (indicated as average blood-oxygenation-level-dependent contrast, or BOLD, signal changes) from the right STS region in response to the passerby’s mutual and averted gaze movements. The mutual- and averted-gaze conditions are plotted along with a plot of their difference (mutual minus averted gaze). Note that the change in activity begins with the appearance of the character in the hallway and increases again at the moment the gaze shift occurs. Adapted from Pelphrey, Viola, & McCarthy (2004).