Identification of others through biological motion

In point-light models, visual cues are reduced to points of light indicating the major points of movements of the human body. Although we are able to recognize people through movement, accuracy of identification of strangers through point-light models is low. Connecting the major points of motion to represent a skeleton might enhance the ability to recognize strangers. This study also wishes to assess whether accuracy will be improved through learning general movement characteristics of individuals. After a learning stage, participants were randomly assigned to match names with either point-light or skeleton models of actor movements. Two of the four actions performed by actors in the testing stage were previously seen during the learning stage. We expect identification from skeleton displays will be higher than for point light displays. We also expect higher accuracy for actions previously seen during the learning stage. The findings and their implications will be discussed.