Exaggerated movements of a particular style are defined as those points in the space of movements which lay on a line originating at the style average and in the direction defined by the difference between the style average and the grand average. In order to visualize the movements, computer animation techniques were employed to transform the three dimensional coordinates of the movement into the motion of a solid-body figure. These solid body models were used in perceptual experiments to assess the effectiveness of the exaggeration technique. Following an initial training session on the exemplars from the original library, subjects viewed the synthetic tennis serve motions and in two separate sessions made either 3-alternative, categorization judgments after viewing a single serve or rated dissimilarity after viewing a pair of serves. Exaggerating temporal differences enhances recognition of individuals from point light displays.
Humans are very good at perceiving each other's movements.
In this paper we investigate the role of time based information on the recognition of individuals from point light biological motion sequences. To do this we use an exaggeration technique that changes temporal properties while keeping spatial information constant. Differences in the durations of motion segments are exaggerated relative to average values. Participants first learned to recognize six individuals on the basis of a simple, unexaggerated arm movement. Subsequently they were found to recognize positively exaggerated versions of those movements better than the originals.