Abstract. New parameters to statistically describe and differentiate between different decorrelation behaviors in dynamic speckle fields are described. These decorrelation behaviors are surrogate descriptors of the dynamics of the underlying processes in object space being observed. The statistical parameters are based on the temporal variations in the location of optical vortices in the speckle fields. The length and number of optical vortex trails, motion of the vortices in the plane of observation and the distance between the mean locations of the positive and negative vortices are investigated. The implementation of the statistical analysis presents new methods to quantify and describe biophysical dynamics.