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.