Recognition of Point-Light Biological Motion Displays by Young Children

Abstract

We tested the ability of children 3-5 years of age to recognise biological motion displays. Children and adults were presented with moving point-light configurations depicting a walking person, four-legged animals (dogs), and a bird. Participants were able to reliably recognise displays with biological motion, but failed in the identification of a static (four consecutive frames taken from each sequence) version. The results indicate that, irrespective of the highly reduced and unusual structural information available in point-light displays, biological motion is sufficient for reliable recognition of human and non-human forms at an age as early as 3 years. Moreover, 5-year-olds exhibit the ceiling level of recognition. The findings are discussed in the context of the neuropsychological and brain mechanisms involved in biological motion perception.

Perceptual-motor deficits in children with Down syndrome: Implications for intervention

“…Research has since shown that adults can accurately identify actions (Johansson, 1975), gender (Pollick et al, 2002), identity (Loula et al, 2005) and emotional states (Dittrich et al, 1996) from the bodily movements defined in these dynamic point-light displays. Indeed, children as young as 3 years of age are able to recognise and differentiate human from non-human motions depicted in point-light displays (Pavlova et al, 2001). Furthermore, by three months of age, children begin to discriminate different types of point-light actions (Booth et al, 2002;Fox & McDaniel, 1982).…”

“…Furthermore, by three months of age, children begin to discriminate different types of point-light actions (Booth et al, 2002;Fox & McDaniel, 1982). Since neither adults nor children are able to accurately interpret static depictions of point-light displays (Johansson, 1973;Pavlova et al, 2001) motion must be a critical parameter for recognition of both human and non-human forms.…”

The visual perception of motion by observers with autism spectrum disorders: A review and synthesis

“…For example, 3-month-old infants demonstrate equivalent levels of visual sensitivity to temporal phase differences in pointlight human and animal motions, whereas 5-month-old infants respond only to phase differences in upright human motion, suggesting that the typical visual system becomes tuned for the detection of canonical human motion (Pinto, 2006). Perceptual sensitivity to unmasked PLDs of human movement approaches adult levels in observers as young as 5 years of age (Blake, Turner, Smoski, Pozdol, & Stone, 2003;Pavlova, Krägeloh-Mann, Sokolov, & Birbaumer, 2001). When masks are added to PLDs of human motion, typical detection thresholds decrease significantly across the ages of 6 years, 9 years, and adulthood (Freire, Lewis, Maurer, & Blake, 2006).…”

Role of dorsal and ventral stream development in biological motion perception

“…Young children have generally served as a control group for comparison with a clinical population [1,2]. The performance of typically developing children increases linearly up to the age of five [3], and from this age on children perform in an adult-like manner [1]. Differences between adults and children over 5 years of age in sensitivity to BM have been observed only in more demanding BM recognition tasks, e.g.…”