Social Vision: At the Intersection of Vision and Person Perception

In this chapter, we examine how the ecological model of vision can be applied to person perception, with a specific emphasis on the combinatorial nature of face perception. Key behavior and neuroanatomical research from the face perception literature is examined. Throughout the chapter, we stress that cues that share social signal value should not-and to a degree, cannot-be studied independently, as has been historically the case. We illustrate this point by reviewing research on the compound nature of identity cues, such as gender and race, and expressive cues, such as eye gaze and facial expressiveness. We argue that the ecological model provides a lens through which we can interpret the complicated nature of person and face perception, helping to reduce the complexities surrounding the study of compound social cue integration.