Perceiving the direction of articulatory motion in point-light actions

Human observers are able to perceive the motion direction of actions (either forward or backward) on the basis of the articulatory, relative motion of the limbs, even when the actions are shown under point-light conditions. However, most studies have focused on the action of walking. The primary purpose of the present study is to further investigate the perception of articulatory motion in different point-light actions (walking, crawling, hand walking, and rowing). On each trial, participants were presented with a forward or backward moving person and they had to decide on the direction of articulatory motion of the person. We analyzed sensitivity (d') as well as response bias (c). In addition to the type of action, the diagnosticity of the available information was manipulated by varying the visibility of the body parts (full body, only upper limbs, or only lower limbs) and the viewpoint from which the action was seen (from frontal view to sagittal view). We observe that, depending on the specific action, perception of direction of motion is driven by different body parts. Implications for the possible existence of a life detector, i.e., an evolutionarily old and innate visual filter that is tuned to quickly and automatically detect the presence of a moving living organism and direct attention to it, are discussed.