Discrimination of locomotion direction in impoverished displays of walkers by macaque monkeys

Abstract

A vast literature exists on human biological motion perception in impoverished displays, e.g., point-light walkers. Less is known about the perception of impoverished biological motion displays in macaques. We trained 3 macaques in the discrimination of facing direction (left versus right) and forward versus backward walking using motion-capture-based locomotion displays (treadmill walking) in which the body features were represented by cylinder-like primitives. The displays did not contain translatory motion. Discriminating forward versus backward locomotion requires motion information while the facing-direction/view task can be solved using motion and/or form. All monkeys required lengthy training to learn the forward-backward task, while the view task was learned more quickly. Once acquired, the discriminations were specific to walking and stimulus format but generalized across actors. Although the view task could be solved using form cues, there was a small impact of motion. Performance in the forward-backward task was highly susceptible to degradations of spatiotemporal stimulus coherence and motion information. These results indicate that rhesus monkeys require extensive training in order to use the intrinsic motion cues related to forward versus backward locomotion and imply that extrapolation of observations concerning human perception of impoverished biological motion displays onto monkey perception needs to be made cautiously.

Distinct Mechanisms for Coding of Visual Actions in Macaque Temporal Cortex

“…These are two of the three subjects trained extensively in the discrimination of some of the stimuli used in this study (see below) (Vangeneugden et al, 2010). Each monkey had a custom-made plastic head post attached to the skull.…”

“…For comparison, we parametrically manipulated facing direction, using controlled displays based on motion-captured human walkers. The complexity of the displays was a compromise between that of difficult-to-control, fully textured body images and easily controllable, but abstract, point light displays used in human biological motion studies (Blake and Shiffrar, 2007) but that might not be easily perceived as biological by macaques (Vangeneugden et al, 2010). …”

“…This contrasts with previous macaque studies in which walkers moved across the display Perrett, 1994, 1996;Jellema et al, 2004;Barraclough et al, 2006;Jellema and Perrett, 2006), adding a strong translatory motion and spatial component that might engage different mechanisms. In a previous psychophysical study using the same stimuli, monkeys required a lengthy training to discriminate forward from backward locomotion (Vangeneugden et al, 2010). Here, we examine the single-cell STS/IT responses in these trained animals to the locomotion stimuli.…”

World in Motion: Perception and Discrimination of Movement in Juvenile Grey Bamboo Sharks (Chiloscyllium griseum)

“…Besides humans, various non-human species including mammals (primates: Brown, Kaplan, Rogers, & Vallortigara, 2010;Parron, Deruelle, & Fagot, 2007;Siegel & Andersen, 1988;Tomonaga, 2001;Vangeneugden, Vancleef, Jaeggli, VanGool, & Vogels, 2010;rats: Foley et al, 2012;MacKinnon, Troje, & Dringenberg, 2010;cats: Blake, 1993;dolphins: Herman, Morrel-Samuels, & Pack, 1990) and birds (e.g., Dittrich & Lea, 1993;Dittrich, Lea, Barrett, & Gurr, 1998;Ortega, Stoppa, Güntürkün, & Troje, 2009;Regolin, Tommasi, & Vallortigara, 2000;Troje & Aust, 2013;Vallortigara, Regolin, & Marconato, 2005;Vallortigara & Regolin, 2006;Zylinski & Osorio, 2013) have also been tested for their ability to recognize and distinguish biological motion patterns. Most species distinguished successfully between simple and complex biological and non-biological motion patterns; however, few were able to transfer or generalize their previously gained knowledge (e.g., MacKinnon et al, 2010;Vangeneugden et al, 2010).…”

“…Most species distinguished successfully between simple and complex biological and non-biological motion patterns; however, few were able to transfer or generalize their previously gained knowledge (e.g., MacKinnon et al, 2010;Vangeneugden et al, 2010). A study on medaka fish (Oryzias latipes; Nakayasu & Watanabe, 2014) looked at the perception of biological motion stimuli and tested if movements such as those created by conspecifics also induced shoaling behavior when expressed as a PLD.…”