Perception of biological motion from size-invariant body representations

The visual recognition of action is one of the socially most important and computationally demanding capacities of the human visual system. It combines visual shape recognition with complex non-rigid motion perception. Action presented as a point-light animation is a striking visual experience for a...

Verfasser: Lappe, Markus
Wittinghofer, Karin
Lussanet, Marc H. E. de
FB/Einrichtung:FB 07: Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft
FB 05: Medizinische Fakultät
Dokumenttypen:Artikel
Medientypen:Text
Erscheinungsdatum:2015
Publikation in MIAMI:18.06.2015
Datum der letzten Änderung:16.04.2019
Angaben zur Ausgabe:[Electronic ed.]
Quelle:Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 9 (2015) 24, 1-8
Schlagwörter:action recognition; biological motion perception; template matching; size invariance; point-light animations
Fachgebiet (DDC):150: Psychologie
Lizenz:CC BY 4.0
Sprache:English
Anmerkungen:Finanziert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2015/2016 der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU Münster).
Format:PDF-Dokument
ISSN:1662-5145
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-99229547066
Weitere Identifikatoren:DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2015.00024
Permalink:https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-99229547066
Onlinezugriff:fnint-09-00024.pdf

The visual recognition of action is one of the socially most important and computationally demanding capacities of the human visual system. It combines visual shape recognition with complex non-rigid motion perception. Action presented as a point-light animation is a striking visual experience for anyone who sees it for the first time. Information about the shape and posture of the human body is sparse in point-light animations, but it is essential for action recognition. In the posturo-temporal filter model of biological motion perception posture information is picked up by visual neurons tuned to the form of the human body before body motion is calculated. We tested whether point-light stimuli are processed through posture recognition of the human body form by using a typical feature of form recognition, namely size invariance. We constructed a point-light stimulus that can only be perceived through a size-invariant mechanism. This stimulus changes rapidly in size from one image to the next. It thus disrupts continuity of early visuo-spatial properties but maintains continuity of the body posture representation. Despite this massive manipulation at the visuo-spatial level, size-changing point-light figures are spontaneously recognized by naive observers, and support discrimination of human body motion.