<p>It is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animacy" rel="nofollow noreferrer">evident from language</a> that everyone can distinguish the living entities from the otherwise, or, rather, that there is a scale between two poles that is widely agreed upon. This observation is paralleled by hard research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. </p>

<p>Is there research that confirms <em>(or refutes)</em> that individuals vary in their preference for animacy?</p>

<p>Another way to state this question is that I am asking whether <em>"animacy preference"</em> is a dimension on which individuals vary.</p>

<p><sub>
<strong>References:</strong><br>
Talia Konkle and Alfonso Caramazza — <em>"Tripartite Organization of the Ventral Stream by Animacy and Object Size"</em><br>
Rosa Salva U.Mayer G.Vallortigara — <em>"Roots of a social brain: Developmental models of emerging animacy-detection mechanisms"</em><br>
Tao Gao George E. Newman Brian J. Scholl — <em>"The psychophysics of chasing: A case study in the perception of animacy"</em></p>

<p></sub></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-20T22:59:48.577Z
I've edited and voted to reopen based on conversations with the OP. Although I'm not familiar with research into this specific question, I think the general interest in psychology and neuroscience for dimensionality reduction (for example, in analysis of personality) makes it a reasonable question.
Bryan Krause
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2019-12-20T23:49:58.473Z
@Bryan I am still confused by the use of 'animacy' outside of a linguistic/grammatical context. For example, this word is not even in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. I expect this is totally unrelated to the question and can be replaced with 'alive' vs 'object', or something similar.
Steven Jeuris
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2019-12-20T23:53:59.670Z
@StevenJeuris It's certainly used as a term in the neuroscience of perception, for examples https://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/25/10235 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763414003546 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010028509000188
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-20T23:56:31.903Z
It's also not strictly binary, for example https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010028509000188 uses a 6-point scale
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T00:03:05.897Z
@Bryan Interesting. But there seems to be some ambiguity with the linguistics definition cited by the OP. Could  a more neuroscientific-focused definition be included instead? Seems like the Wiki page is missing this. :)
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T00:06:56.657Z
I went on to incorporate the references from Bryan Krause into the question. I do not insist that they stay there, but I wonder which way is better. On the other hand, I would rather not nail this question down to a niche definition. I realize that scoping of definitions is a large meta-debate. My intent is to keep my question as much _"common sense"_ oriented as possible, so that it remains meaningful for a wider slice of people.
Ignat Insarov
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2019-12-21T00:10:54.700Z
@IgnatInsarov References are useless without a citation/explanation as to why they are there.To me, now you have two references to only partially overlapping definitions of 'animacy', and it is totally unclear what _your_ interpretation of 'animacy' is. If you want to keep it 'common sense', remove all references and use 'common sense' words.
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T00:12:58.817Z
@StevenJeuris Let us sleep on this for a while then. Maybe this issue will resolve itself with an advance of the meta-debate mentioned.
Ignat Insarov
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T00:18:26.120Z
FYI: after some reading into the references Bryan provided, my impression is 'animacy' in that field of research relates to 'intentional goal-directed movement', thus different from linguistics where it "express[es] how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is" (e.g., animals are less sentient than humans are). To highlight there is a distinction, consider sentences in the neuroscience paper such as (emphasis mine): _"We may know that the displays which give rise to the perception of animacy are **completely lifeless**"_.
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T00:49:38.363Z
@StevenJeuris I don't think they are that far apart, though yes there may be differences in where boundaries are drawn. Being (or appearing to be) capable of goal directed movement is a big part of what sentience is. It's the difference between the kind of "alive" that an animal is vs a plant.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T00:50:39.997Z
The bit about being completely lifeless applies in the linguistic case too. We know a puppet is completely lifeless and yet refer to Kermit the Frog using grammatical animacy.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T00:51:19.390Z
@StevenJeuris Language is not that limited though. There is metaphor. People can and do refer to things they know to be lifeless with the _"animate"_ grammatical category.
Ignat Insarov
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T01:03:36.350Z
I might be convinced of all of that, and believe I recognized an overlap from the outset. But what remains, if your _"intent is to keep [your] question as much "common sense" oriented as possible"_, why not use common sense words? You know, those that are in the dictionary. :) Those that don't carry additional (or more specific) context you might not be interested in. You can always add the two definitions of animacy as a sort of 'related work' section to the question. But is it really relevant?
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T01:07:14.823Z
@StevenJeuris I do not know. I have no idea when questions get closed here, when they get opened, what words are allowed, which are forbidden. Do whatever you want with my question, own it if you wish, I care not anymore.
Ignat Insarov
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T01:18:11.560Z
@Bryan, rereading this now, considering the linguistic definition of 'animacy', I actually don't think you would ever say "using grammatical animacy". :) That seems a bit nonsensical given what 'animacy' means in linguistics; hard to put my finger on it why, it feels recursive (the fact that there is a degree to which objects are perceived as 'sentient', e.g., a doll more, and might be referred to differently is the concept of grammatical animacy). It does in the other neuroscience definition, though, hence that sentence I quoted makes sense.
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T06:26:45.327Z
@StevenJeuris The way I phrased it is definitely awkward, but I meant that Kermit is a "who" despite being a puppet. Ignat said it better: "People can and do refer to things they know to be lifeless with the "animate" grammatical category."
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T10:34:08.887Z
I know what you mean to say. That is not the issue. But animate is a different word than animacy.  The point was you wouldn't use (linguistic) 'animacy' to say what you were trying to say, since it means something different. Animate is in fact in the dictionary. Either way, I'm the minority now, so let's keep it open. 
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T11:29:24.087Z
Reading the comments, original post and all the edits here, I have been following the same thought pattern as @StevenJeuris where I have been considering the question based on preference towards the animate vs inanimate, but then thinking more and reading more into the possible interpretations of ‘animacy’ I feel more clarification needs to be made **within the post** on what ‘animacy’ is to refer to as it can be more complex than I initially anticipated. Is the question referring to just animate vs inanimate (puppets are animate when a puppeteer is animating it, but otherwise an inanimate)...
Chris Rogers
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T11:31:55.947Z
...A puppet **in a sense** can be viewed as sentient as the puppeteer can make the puppet interact with the viewer. Is sentient vs non-sentient involved in the ‘animacy’ criteria? Are other factors at play here?
Chris Rogers
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-21T11:54:46.377Z
@ChrisRogers My angle is that what matters is whether a person perceives the target as that much animate. That I can at once know that a puppet is dead and yet feel as though it is alive, takes us out of binary logic, so indeed this is not straightforward. We can go on and define more and more precisely what specific state of mind we set to be _"perception of animacy"_, but I am not sure if we want to go down that road.
Ignat Insarov
<language><behavior>
Is there evidence that individuals consistently prefer entities according to their animacy?
Ignat Insarov
# Is there evidence that individuals consistently prefer entities according to their animacy?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-12-17)

It is [evident from language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animacy) that everyone can distinguish the living entities from the otherwise, or, rather, that there is a scale between two poles that is widely agreed upon. This observation is paralleled by hard research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

Is there research that confirms *(or refutes)* that individuals vary in their preference for animacy?

Another way to state this question is that I am asking whether *"animacy preference"* is a dimension on which individuals vary.

**References:**  
Talia Konkle and Alfonso Caramazza — *"Tripartite Organization of the Ventral Stream by Animacy and Object Size"*  
Rosa Salva U.Mayer G.Vallortigara — *"Roots of a social brain: Developmental models of emerging animacy-detection mechanisms"*  
Tao Gao George E. Newman Brian J. Scholl — *"The psychophysics of chasing: A case study in the perception of animacy"*

**Tags:** language, behavior

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I've edited and voted to reopen based on conversations with the OP. Although I'm not familiar with research into this specific question, I think the general interest in psychology and neuroscience for dimensionality reduction (for example, in analysis of personality) makes it a reasonable question.  
> **username_2**: @Bryan I am still confused by the use of 'animacy' outside of a linguistic/grammatical context. For example, this word is not even in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. I expect this is totally unrelated to the question and can be replaced with 'alive' vs 'object', or something similar.  
> **username_1**: @StevenJeuris It's certainly used as a term in the neuroscience of perception, for examples https://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/25/10235 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763414003546 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010028509000188  
> **username_1**: It's also not strictly binary, for example https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010028509000188 uses a 6-point scale  
> **username_2**: @Bryan Interesting. But there seems to be some ambiguity with the linguistics definition cited by the OP. Could  a more neuroscientific-focused definition be included instead? Seems like the Wiki page is missing this. :)  
> **username_0**: I went on to incorporate the references from username_1 into the question. I do not insist that they stay there, but I wonder which way is better. On the other hand, I would rather not nail this question down to a niche definition. I realize that scoping of definitions is a large meta-debate. My intent is to keep my question as much _"common sense"_ oriented as possible, so that it remains meaningful for a wider slice of people.  
> **username_2**: @IgnatInsarov References are useless without a citation/explanation as to why they are there.To me, now you have two references to only partially overlapping definitions of 'animacy', and it is totally unclear what _your_ interpretation of 'animacy' is. If you want to keep it 'common sense', remove all references and use 'common sense' words.  
> **username_0**: @StevenJeuris Let us sleep on this for a while then. Maybe this issue will resolve itself with an advance of the meta-debate mentioned.  
> **username_2**: FYI: after some reading into the references Bryan provided, my impression is 'animacy' in that field of research relates to 'intentional goal-directed movement', thus different from linguistics where it "express[es] how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is" (e.g., animals are less sentient than humans are). To highlight there is a distinction, consider sentences in the neuroscience paper such as (emphasis mine): _"We may know that the displays which give rise to the perception of animacy are **completely lifeless**"_.  
> **username_1**: @StevenJeuris I don't think they are that far apart, though yes there may be differences in where boundaries are drawn. Being (or appearing to be) capable of goal directed movement is a big part of what sentience is. It's the difference between the kind of "alive" that an animal is vs a plant.  
> **username_1**: The bit about being completely lifeless applies in the linguistic case too. We know a puppet is completely lifeless and yet refer to Kermit the Frog using grammatical animacy.  
> **username_0**: @StevenJeuris Language is not that limited though. There is metaphor. People can and do refer to things they know to be lifeless with the _"animate"_ grammatical category.  
> **username_2**: I might be convinced of all of that, and believe I recognized an overlap from the outset. But what remains, if your _"intent is to keep [your] question as much "common sense" oriented as possible"_, why not use common sense words? You know, those that are in the dictionary. :) Those that don't carry additional (or more specific) context you might not be interested in. You can always add the two definitions of animacy as a sort of 'related work' section to the question. But is it really relevant?  
> **username_0**: @StevenJeuris I do not know. I have no idea when questions get closed here, when they get opened, what words are allowed, which are forbidden. Do whatever you want with my question, own it if you wish, I care not anymore.  
> **username_2**: @Bryan, rereading this now, considering the linguistic definition of 'animacy', I actually don't think you would ever say "using grammatical animacy". :) That seems a bit nonsensical given what 'animacy' means in linguistics; hard to put my finger on it why, it feels recursive (the fact that there is a degree to which objects are perceived as 'sentient', e.g., a doll more, and might be referred to differently is the concept of grammatical animacy). It does in the other neuroscience definition, though, hence that sentence I quoted makes sense.  
> **username_1**: @StevenJeuris The way I phrased it is definitely awkward, but I meant that Kermit is a "who" despite being a puppet. Ignat said it better: "People can and do refer to things they know to be lifeless with the "animate" grammatical category."  
> **username_2**: I know what you mean to say. That is not the issue. But animate is a different word than animacy.  The point was you wouldn't use (linguistic) 'animacy' to say what you were trying to say, since it means something different. Animate is in fact in the dictionary. Either way, I'm the minority now, so let's keep it open.   
> **username_3**: Reading the comments, original post and all the edits here, I have been following the same thought pattern as @StevenJeuris where I have been considering the question based on preference towards the animate vs inanimate, but then thinking more and reading more into the possible interpretations of ‘animacy’ I feel more clarification needs to be made **within the post** on what ‘animacy’ is to refer to as it can be more complex than I initially anticipated. Is the question referring to just animate vs inanimate (puppets are animate when a puppeteer is animating it, but otherwise an inanimate)...  
> **username_3**: ...A puppet **in a sense** can be viewed as sentient as the puppeteer can make the puppet interact with the viewer. Is sentient vs non-sentient involved in the ‘animacy’ criteria? Are other factors at play here?  
> **username_0**: @ChrisRogers My angle is that what matters is whether a person perceives the target as that much animate. That I can at once know that a puppet is dead and yet feel as though it is alive, takes us out of binary logic, so indeed this is not straightforward. We can go on and define more and more precisely what specific state of mind we set to be _"perception of animacy"_, but I am not sure if we want to go down that road.  

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## 0 answers

