2026 Volume 33 Issue 3 Pages 401-411
Animacy perception—the impression of lifelikeness based on motion cues—has been widely studied in perceptual psychology and social cognition. While previous research has examined the physical motion features that induce animacy impressions, little is known about how these impressions are modulated by temporal context. This study investigated whether serial dependence affects perceived animacy. In Experiment 1, we created dot animation stimuli with varying levels of motion noise and found that animacy perception increased as motion noise decreased. In Experiment 2, we separately quantified response-history and stimulus-history components of serial dependence using sequential regression models and Derivative-of-Gaussian (DoG) functions. Results revealed a significant assimilation bias toward the preceding trial, and the stimulus-history component was well captured by a DoG-shaped tuning curve as a function of the difference in noise level (Δstim). These findings suggest that animacy perception is susceptible to serial dependence, supporting the generality of continuity field-based temporal integration mechanisms.
