Thread by @Ri_Science

Morning Twitter! I'm @HefferNaomi, Ri Digital Intern and PhD student @UniofBath where I study multisensory perception 👁️👂
I'm taking over @Ri_Science this morning to talk about the power of biological motion #perception #emotion #psychology #neuroscience

Motion is an extremely powerful social signal that we use to attribute intentions to others. From the still image we see only simple shapes, but by adding motion, we automatically start attributing emotions and purposes to the ‘characters’.

To me, the large triangle seemed like a bit of a bully😡, the small triangle a victim😱, and the circle wanted to help but was hiding in fear. This just shows the vast amount of social information we can ascertain from simple motion.

Imposing a story on the Heider-Simmel film seems to come easily to humans. But it is difficult to get a computer to do it. This suggests that understanding the actions and intentions of others based on motion is a complex, powerful social mechanism 💯

Humans are really sensitive to the difference between biological vs. non-biological motion. This is why motion capture from humans, rather than purely computer-generated motion, is used in a lot of films.
Like…. ⬇️

Seth MacFarlane as Ted (1 of 4)

Andy Serkis as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings (2 of 4)

Dan Stevens as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast (3 of 4)

And last but in no possible way least…. Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug in The Hobbit

You can learn more about how motion capture works here: scienceworld.ca/how-motion-cap… 👀

The preference for biological motion over other types of motion is evident from very early in infancy. Some research suggests it is present in the first few days after birth but is definitely developed by 6 months.

This suggests that the mechanism for processing biological motion is largely innate and automatic. Researchers have suggested it could be one property of our visual system that allows us to distinguish living creatures from other objects in early life🏃‍♂️

Point-light displays are used to study biological motion. Compare these stills and animations to see how much information about human intentions and actions we can get from simple motion, in the absence of any other social cues (credit: Brain Hackers Association via YouTube)

(1 of 3)

(2 of 3)

(3 of 3)

From the still images we can’t discern very much. But from the motion, we can see people crawling👣, cycling🚴‍♂️and jumping🤾‍♀️

So it’s clear we can use perception of biological motion to understand other people’s actions and intentions. But we can also use motion to help us understand other people’s emotions.

We can change features of the biological motion for this ‘neutral’ point-walker to make them look…. (animations created using Biomotionlab.ca/Demos/BMLwalke…)

(1/5) More nervous…

…. Or more relaxed (2/5)

(3/5) Happier...

... or sad (4/5)

(5/5) You can play around with the motion of the point-walker, changing gender, mood, speed and more using the Biomotionlab.ca/Demos/BMLwalke… online tool

This suggests that body motion is an important source of information for helping us recognise other people’s emotions, which is important for empathy.

The way that we combine emotion cues from different sources like facial expression, voice and body motion is the subject of my research @BathPsychology, which you can read more about here: #perception #neuroscience #psychology
technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/a…

@BathPsychology In summary, perception of biological motion is an important mechanism for allowing us to understand the emotions and intentions of other people😀😠😪😟

@BathPsychology Thanks for following this thread! If you want to know more about emotion perception, biological motion and how I investigate these topics in my research, then please post your questions ⬇️