Self-Recognition and Other-Recognition in Point-Light Displays

Adult humans’ recognition of self and others in diverse media (e.g., mirrors, videos) provides evidence for their skills at kinesthetic-visual and visual-visual matching, respectively. In this study, we examine self- and other-recognition in point-light displays (PLDs). Participants (7 men, 4 women) were filmed while walking in the dark with lighted joints to create two PLDs each, one showing a frontal view and one showing a half-profile view. Ten of the participants then observed 22 PLDs, two of themselves and two each of 10 familiar persons, and named whom they perceived in each PLD. Participants achieved greater than chance levels of accuracy in identifying themselves (55% of the time) and others (29.5%). Comparisons using three measures showed that participants were better at detecting themselves than others; however, variability in self- and other-detection within and across studies suggests caution prior to generalizing. Participants were equally successful in detecting walkers in frontal and half-profile PLDs, on average detecting about 3 walkers out of 11 in each perspective. Thus, participants showed some skill in using kinesthetic-visual and visual-visual matching in recognizing self and other, respectively, from the limited information present in PLDs.