title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen, Germany. marina.pavlova@uni-tuebingen.de
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pavlova
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Krägeloh-Mann
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sokolov
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Birbaumer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001717:Birds; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004285:Dogs; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008029:Lighting / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*