Preference for point-light human biological motion in newborns: Contribution of translational displacement.

Abstract

In human newborns, spontaneous visual preference for biological motion is reported to occur at birth, but the factors underpinning this preference are still in debate. Using a standard visual preferential looking paradigm, 4 experiments were carried out in 3-day-old human newborns to assess the influence of translational displacement on perception of human locomotion. Experiment 1 shows that human newborns prefer a point-light walker display representing human locomotion as if on a treadmill over random motion. However, no preference for biological movement is observed in Experiment 2 when both biological and random motion displays are presented with translational displacement. Experiments 3 and 4 show that newborns exhibit preference for translated biological motion (Experiment 3) and random motion (Experiment 4) displays over the same configurations moving without translation. These findings reveal that human newborns have a preference for the translational component of movement independently of the presence of biological kinematics. The outcome suggests that translation constitutes the first step in development of visual preference for biological motion.

Action Interrupted: Movement and Breakpoints in the Processing of Motion Violations in Toddlers and Adults

“…Findings in our toddler sample are consistent with previous developmental work showing that young children attend to motion as a salient cue for action interpretation (Abrams & Christ, 2003; Bidet-Ildei, Kitromilides, Orliaguet, Pavlova, & Gentaz, 2013; Kremenitzer, Vaughan, & Dowling, 1979; Rosander et al, 2007). In the only other study, to our knowledge, that has investigated the relative influence of transitions versus actions on looking patterns prior to age 2, Hespos et al (2010) found that changes in action, rather than in transitions, predicted performance: infants looked significantly longer at novel action/familiar transition compared to familiar action/novel transition segments.…”

“…One salient visual feature in infancy is motion (Abrams & Christ, 2003; Bidet-Ildei, Kitromilides, Orliaguet, Pavlova, & Gentaz, 2013; Kremenitzer, Vaughan, & Dowling, 1979; Rosander et al, 2007). Between 6 and 14 weeks of age infant’s ability to discriminate motion direction (Atkinson, 2000; Braddick, Birtles, Wattam-Bell, & Atkinson, 2005) and to smoothly pursue moving objects (Rosander & von Hofsten, 2002) improves rapidly.…”

Developmental tuning of reflexive attentional effect to biological motion cues

“…A similar phenomenon has also been observed with human neonates. 2- or 3-day-old infants have been able to distinguish the point-light biological motion from other random rigid motion displays and prefer to look at the former even if it depicts the other species' shape (i.e., a walking hen)56. The advantageous processing of biological motion continues to develop in childhood78, and the sensitivity to biological motion still improves into adolescence if the point-light displays are embedded in a noise mask9.…”

Scientific Concepts: Development in Children

“…Recent evidence has identified early sensitivity to unique biological characteristics such as gaze alternation, face recognition, and biological motion within 1 year (Bidet-Ildei et al, 2013;Brand et al, 2007;de Haan et al, 2002). For example, infants can distinguish between animate and inanimate objects (Rakison and Poulin-Dubois, 2001;Woodward et al, 2001) and recognize that self-propelled movement is unique to animals (Kosugi et al, 2003).…”