Exaggerating temporal differences enhances recognition of individuals frompoint light displays

Humans are very good at perceiving each other's movements. In this article, we investigate the role of time-based information in the recognition of in dividuals from point light biological motion sequences. We report an experi ment in which we used an exaggeration technique that changes temporal prope rties while keeping spatial information constant; differences in the durati ons of motion segments are exaggerated relative to average values. Particip ants first learned to recognize six individuals on the basis of a simple, u nexaggerated arm movement. Subsequently, they recognized positively exagger ated versions of those movements better than the originals. Absolute durati on did not appear to be the critical cue. The results show that time-based cues are used for the recognition of movements and that exaggerating tempor al differences improves performance. The results suggest that exaggeration may reflect general principles of how diagnostic information is encoded for recognition in different domains.