Data from: Direction of biological motion affects early brain activation: a link with social cognition

Pegna, Alan John, University of Geneva, University Hospital of Geneva

Gehring, Elise, University Hospital of Geneva

Meyer, Georg, University of Liverpool

Del Zotto, Marzia, University of Geneva, University Hospital of Geneva

Published Jun 16, 2016 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.707g2

Cite this dataset

Pegna, Alan John; Gehring, Elise; Meyer, Georg; Del Zotto, Marzia (2016). Data from: Direction of biological motion affects early brain activation: a link with social cognition [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.707g2

Abstract

A number of EEG studies have investigated the time course of brain activation for biological movement over this last decade, however the temporal dynamics of processing are still debated. Moreover, the role of direction of movement has not received much attention even though it is an essential component allowing us to determine the intentions of the moving agent, and thus permitting the anticipation of potential social interactions. In this study, we examined event-related responses (ERPs) in 15 healthy human participants to light point walkers and their scrambled counterparts, whose movements occurred either in the radial or in the lateral plane. Compared to scrambled motion (SM), biological motion (BM) showed an enhanced negativity between 210 and 360ms. A source localization algorithm (sLORETA) revealed that this was due to an increase in superior and middle temporal lobe activity. Regarding direction, we found that radial BM produced an enhanced P1 compared to lateral BM, lateral SM and radial SM. This heightened P1 was due to an increase in activity in extrastriate regions, as well as in superior temporal, medial parietal and medial prefrontal areas. This network is known to be involved in decoding the underlying intentionality of the movement and in the attribution of mental states. The social meaning signaled by the direction of biological motion therefore appears to trigger an early response in brain activity.

Usage notes

Biological motion individual ERP files

These are the ERP files of every subject in each condition, used in the paper entitled "Direction of biological motion affects early brain ativation: a link with social cognition", by Pegna, Gehring, Meyer & Del Zotto, and published in PLoS-One. Data for each of the 4 experimental conditions (radial iological motion -rBM- ; lateral biological motion -lBM-; radial scrambled motion -rSM-; and lateral scrmbled motion -lSM-) are placed in separate folders named for the condition. Within each folder, the ERP of each subject is given under the subject number; i.e., 1s for the first subject, 2s for the second subjects and so forth, followed by the abberviation of the experimental condition. Thus for example, the ERP of the 1st subject in the lateral scrambled motion condition is given the name "1s_lSM.txt". The data within the each file is given in ASCII format with each column corresponding to a given electrode and each row to a time frame. There are 64 columns corresponding to the following electrodes (in order) from left to right: Fp1, AF7; AF3; F1; F3; F5; F7; FT7; FC5; FC3; FC1; C1; C3; C5; T7; TP7; CP5; CP3; CP1; P1; P3; P5; P7; P9; PO7; PO3; O1; Iz; Oz; POz; Pz; CPz; Fpz; Fp2; AF8; AF4; Afz; Fz; F2; F4; F6; F8; FT8; FC6; FC4; FC2; FCz; Cz; C2; C4; C6; T8; TP8; CP6; CP4; CP2; P2; P4; P6; P8; P10; PO8; PO4; O2. There are 1126 rows corresponding to the successive time frames over time beginning 100ms before the appearance of the stimulus at the top row. As the sampling rate was of 1024 Hz, each time frame corresponds to 0.976ms. The total duration of the epochs is consequently of 1098.632 ms (1126 time frames). A separate file named Biosemi_64.els is included containing the names of the electrodes as well as their cartesian coordinates.

biomotion.zip