Extended visuomotor experience with inverted movements can overcome the inversion effect in biological motion perception

Abstract

Studies have demonstrated that perceiving human and animal movements as point-light displays is effortless. However, simply inverting the display can significantly impair this ability. Compared to non-dancers and typical dancers, vertical dancers have the unique experience of observing and performing movements upside down as being suspended in the air. We studied whether this unique visuomotor experience makes them better at perceiving the inverted movements. We presented ten pairs of dance movements as point-light displays. Each pair included a version performed on the ground whereas the other was in the air. We inverted the display in half of the trials and asked vertical dancers, typical dancers, and non-dancers about whether the display was inverted. We found that only vertical dancers, who have extended visual and motor experience with the configural and dynamic information of the movements, could identify the inversion of movements performed in the air. Neither typical dancers nor non-dancers, who have no motor experience with performing the inverted movements, could detect the inversion. Our findings suggest that motor experience plays a more critical role in enabling the observers to use dynamic information for identifying artificial inversion in biological motion.

Experience Modulates Visual Search Strategies and the Effectiveness of Information Pickup to Overcome the Inversion Effect in Biological Motion Perception

“…Table 2 shows the mixed-design ANOVA results for d'. Because the current study involved direct replication of a previous study (Wang et al, 2022) For the significant main effect of Recording Type, sensitivity to the artificial inversion of ground movement (mean = 1.27, SE = 0.10) was significantly greater than that of air movement (mean = -0.10, SE = 0.11, p < 0.001). As expected, participants across all experience levels were more familiar with movements performed on the ground and, therefore, were more sensitive to the artificial inversion of ground movements.…”

“…Based on findings of a previous study (Wang et al, 2022), it was expected that, due to their extended visuomotor experience, VDs were more sensitive to the inversion of air movements than NDs and TDs when given complete dynamic information and regardless of the movement's congruency. In this context, the goal of eye tracking analysis is to investigate the source of the visual information in the animation that VDs focused on to achieve higher sensitivity.…”

“…The visual stimuli used in this study were identical to that of Wang et al (2022). A male and a female professional vertical dancer performed a series of dance movements while being fitted with 13 optical markers.…”

“…ground: X -Plié/extend; air: Inverted X -Plié/extend). More details can be found in a video demo (https://youtu.be/6vLQgQpy-uc) from the previous study (Wang et al, 2022).…”

“…While the inversion effect yields impairment to biological motion perception, a recent study suggested that visuomotor experience with inverted movements could help the observers to overcome this adverse effect (Wang et al, 2022). This study focused on the unique visuomotor experience of vertical dancers (VD), as compared to typical (TD) and non-dancers (ND).…”