Since the seminal work of Fritz Heider and Marienne Simmel (1944) the study of animacy perception, or the perception and attribution of life from the motion of simple geometrical shapes has intrigued researchers. The intrigue for psychologists and vision scientists then and today centered on the stark disconnect between the simplicity of the visual input and the universal richness of the resulting percept. Infant research in this domain has become critical in examining the ontological processes behind the formation of animated percepts. To date, little is known about how infants process these kinds of stimuli. While numerous habituation studies have shown sensitivity to animate motion in general, none to date has examined whether infants actually perceive animate displays as social interactions. The overarching goal of the present thesis is to answer this question and further augment knowledge about the mechanisms behind the formation of animated percepts in infancy. I, along with my collaborators, do so in three ways, in three separate studies. First, we examined visual attention during online observation of randomly moving geometrical shapes in adults and infants (Study I, using eye tracking). Second, we examine distribution of visual attention in infancy during online observation of non-contact causal interactions, focusing on the most ubiquitous, fitness relevant of interactions – chasing (Study II, using eye tracking). Third, we answer the question whether infants perceive social content in chasing displays by measuring the neural correlates in response to chasing (Study III, using EEG). The collective contribution of the present work is also three fold. First, it demonstrates that starting at the end of the first year of life, human visual system is sensitive to cues that efficiently predict an interaction. Second, at 5-months infants begins allocating attention differently across agents within interactions. Finally, attention to specific objects is not due to low-level saliency but the social nature of the interaction. Subsequently, I present the case that perception of social agents is fast, direct, and reflects the workings of a specialized learning mechanisms whose function is the detection of heat-seeking animates in motion.

Long-term evolution of nature-society interactions can be studied by using data of land use change. In the thesis is used a detailed statistical database of Czechia (developed at Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science). The database allows monitoring changes of eight categories of land use in the period 1845-2000. Attention is devoted to the growing differentiation of land use at different scale levels, the thesis is concentrated on functional specialization of czech regions. Deepening division of labour between regions is reflected by increasing territorial concentration of land use. This process is monitored by using three methods. Ternary plots present an overview of the differentiation trends of land use. Spatial autocorrelation methods present the general development and specific areas of functional specialization in Czechia. A review by territorial heterogeneity rate provides a detailed look at the change of territorial concentration of land use. The thesis operates with three territorial classifications (hydrological, geomorphological and administrative) at two regional levels and the level of Czechia. Results are interpreted using the driving forces (such as technological development, economics, historical events, society). The final part of the thesis compares the development of...