Matching Biological Motion at Extreme Distances I M Thornton1, Z Wootton, P Pedmanson1 |
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1Psychology Department, Swansea University, United Kingdom
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| How far away can an observer be positioned and still decide what a distant actor is doing? We conducted a laboratory study in which we systematically varied the apparent distance of point-light figures relative to a fixed viewing position. Two flanking point-light figures were kept at a constant apparent distance of 15 meters from the observer, subtending approximately 6.7° in height. The apparent distance of a central target figure was varied between 15 and 1000 meters by systematically scaling its size. On each trial, the two flankers performed different actions (e.g., walk, sweep, chop, wave), and were randomly rotated in depth. The target figure always copied the action of one flanker, but was out of phase and had an independent depth orientation. The task was simply to indicate whether the target action matched the left or right flanker. Matching accuracy for dynamic, but not static, figures remained above chance even at the most extreme distances where the entire figure subtended only 0.1° in height. Our data also suggest that increasing distance leads to a transition from fast, efficient processing, to slower, more effortful decision-making, an idea that is absent from existing models of biological motion processing. |
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