Newborns' perception of approach and withdrawal from biological movement: A closeness story

Abstract

Since birth, infants discriminate the biological motion (BM) revealed by point‐light displays (PLDs). To date, no studies have explored whether newborns differentiate BM that approaches rather than withdraws from them. Yet, approach and withdrawal are two fundamental motivations in the socio‐emotional world, key to developing empathy and prosocial behavior. Through a looking‐behavior paradigm, we demonstrated that a few hours after birth, a human figure approaching attracted more visual attention than a human figure receding, showing that newborns are attuned to PLDs of others moving toward rather than walking away from them. Further, a withdrawing body appears to be less attractive than withdrawing scrambled points. Altogether, these observations support the existence of an early predisposition toward social closeness that might have its roots in an evolutionary perspective.

Single point motion kinematics convey emotional signals in children and adults

“…PLDs technique relies on applying illuminated markers placed on some crucial points (i.e., joints) of a human body, while all other body features are masked. When presented as static, the PLD is not recognized as a meaningful configuration, but as soon as the markers are moving, from birth we immediately recognize the movement of a human body [7][8][9]. PLDs have been used to separate information concerning motion from any other type of visual information [8,10].…”