Biological motion perception is a key component of action perception contributing to social cognition in crucial ways. Contemporary neuroimaging studies show that biological motion is processed differently in the human brain from other types of motion. In particular, the right posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus (rpSTS), an area known for its central role in social perception, has been consistently associated with the perception of biological motion in the mature brain. By contrast, most findings investigating the development of biological motion perception in infancy come from behavioral studies, and far less is known regarding the right STS’ role in processing biological motion.

The current study used fNIRS to measure brain activation to biological motion in the rSTS region of 7–8-month-old infants. Infants were presented with two conditions: an approaching coherent motion of a person walking (coherent point-light-walker, PLW); and a spatially scrambled version of this display, where the global configuration of a person walking was disrupted (scrambled PLW).

We found a functional activation, i.e., a significant increase in HbO₂ concentration in relation to baseline, in the right middle-posterior temporal cortex only when infants viewed the coherent point-light-walker. This activation statistically differed from the scrambled point-light-walker, and no significant activations were found for viewing the scrambled motion.

Our study adds evidence pointing to rSTS’ sensitivity to the global human configuration in biological motion processing during infancy. The rSTS seems thus to become functionally specialized in biological motion configuration as early as at 7–8 months of age.

生物动作知觉是动作知觉的关键组成部分，以关键方式促进了社会认知。当代神经影像研究表明，人脑中生物运动的处理方式与其他类型的运动不同。尤其是右后颞上沟（rpSTS），以其在社会知觉中的核心作用而闻名，一直与成熟大脑中生物运动的知觉相关联。相比之下，大多数调查婴儿期生物运动知觉发展的发现来自行为研究，而关于正确的STS在处理生物运动中的作用知之甚少。

当前的研究使用fNIRS来测量7-8个月大婴儿的rSTS区域中大脑对生物运动的激活。婴儿有两种情况：一个人走路时接近的连贯运动（相干点光行者，PLW）；以及该显示的空间打乱版本，其中一个人走路的整体配置被打乱了（打扰的PLW）。

我们发现只有当婴儿观察相干的点光步行者时，右中后颞叶皮质才会发生功能激活，即HbO ₂浓度相对于基线显着增加。这种激活在统计上不同于加扰的点光行进器，并且没有发现用于查看加扰运动的显着激活。

我们的研究增加了证据，表明rSTS在婴儿期对生物运动过程中的全球人类结构敏感。因此，早在7-8个月大时，rSTS就似乎在功能上专门针对生物运动配置。