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MONDAY, Sept. 8 (HealthDay News) -- A masculine walking motion is perceived by observers as coming toward them, while a feminine walk seems to be heading the other way, according to an Australian study.
This type of research is done by illuminating only the joints of walkers and asking observers to identify characteristics about the point-light figures' movements.
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"It's a really interesting thing," Rick van der Zwan, of Southern Cross University, said in a Cell Press news release. "If you look at someone with just their joints illuminated when they aren't moving, it's difficult to tell what it is you are looking at. But as soon as they move, instantaneously, you can tell that it's a person and perceive their nature. You can tell if it's a boy or a girl, young or old, angry or happy. You can discern all these qualities about their state, affect, and actions with no cues at all about what they look like -- with no form at all -- just motion."
An earlier study that used male models noted that observers tended to perceive the point-light figures as always facing in their direction, even if that wasn't the case. In this news study, van der Zwan and colleagues took a closer look at this phenomenon by having observers view a series of point-light figures ranging from a "girly girl" to a "hulking male."
The researchers found that walking male figures did indeed appear to face toward the observers, while female figures appeared to be face away from observers. The pattern was the same regardless of the gender of the observer, which may offer an important clue about the behavior.
"Our data suggest that biological motion is an important cue for social organisms trying to operate in environments where other cues as to the actions or intentions of other organisms may be ambiguous," van der Zwan and colleagues wrote.
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