““The clothes (and the face) make the Starman”: Facial and clothing features shape self-other matching processes between human observers and a cartoon character

Abstract

Anthropomorphization occurs when human characteristics are attributed to nonhuman animals or objects. One process that could facilitate the anthropomorphization of nonhuman animals may be a self-other body-part matching mechanism wherein the body of the nonhuman animal is conceptually mapped to the human observer’s representation of their body. The present study was designed to determine if specific features could facilitate body-part matching between the cartoon of a nonhuman animal and human observers. Participants responded to targets presented on the cartoon of a starfish. In No Structure conditions, dots and curved lines were distributed evenly within the starfish. In Face conditions, two dots and one curved line represented eyes and a mouth of a “face”. In Clothes conditions, dots and lines represented a shirt and pants. Body-part matching emerged when the image had a face or clothing, but did not emerge in No Structure conditions. These studies provide unique evidence that the anthropomorphization of a nonhuman cartoon may be facilitated by human-like internal features on the image.