Visual adaptation of the perception of "life": animacy is a basic perceptual dimension of faces.

One critical component of understanding another's mind is the perception of "life" in a face. However, little is known about the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying this perception of animacy. Here, using a visual adaptation paradigm, we ask whether face animacy is (1) a basic dimension of face perception and (2) supported by a common neural mechanism across distinct face categories defined by age and species.