Biological Motion:Point-Light Walkers and Beyond

Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to review the role that Johansson’s (1973) pointlight stimuli have played in the study of biological motion. I begin by describing this type of stimuli and the techniques used to create them and then discuss the various reasons why I believe they have proven to be such a popular and powerful research tool. I will then consider two possible limitations with this technique and introduce additional methods that are becoming available for the study of biological motion. In the final sections I also take one general research theme from the area of biological-motion processing-the question of detern1ining gender from motion-and discuss some preliminary findings on how techniques other than point-light stimuli can be exploited.