Untangling the confounded relationship between perceiver sex and walker sex on the bistable perception of emotion displaying point-light walkers

Abstract

Point-light displays of walking gait carries an assortment of information about the individual and this information is often perceivable to others. Some of these bits of information are entangled, with some facilitating and others inhibiting each other. We sought to untangle the perception of basic threat emotions from sex of the walker and the perceiver, as expressed through the bistable perception of anticipated approaching or withdrawing point-light walkers. Stationary point-light walkers displaying anger or fear were shown to 164 psychology student perceivers, who were told that the walkers would be either walking towards them or walking away from them. Perceivers were asked to identify the displayed emotion for each walker stimulus. Expected walker direction showed no influence on the perception of either emotion, across either sex of the perceivers or walkers. Anger was identified better on male walkers and fear was identified better on female walkers. Female perceivers were able to identify both emotions better than male perceivers, but only when displayed by female walkers. The sex of both the perceiver and the walker interact to influence the perception of basic threat emotions displayed through point-light walking gait, with implications for the development of inter-sexual and intra-sexual group cohesion programs.