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Abstract

Biological motion contains many forms of information. Observers are usually able to tell 'what' action is being performed (eg walking versus running), 'how' it is being performed (eg quickly versus slowly), and by 'whom' (eg a young versus an old actor). We used visual search to explore the perception of gender-from-motion. In the first experiment, we used computer-animated, fully rendered human figures in which the structural and dynamic information for gender were factorially combined. In separate blocks, observers were asked to locate a figure walking with a male or female gait among distractors having the same form but opposite motion. In the second experiment, point-light walkers moved along random paths in a 3-D virtual environment. Observers were asked to locate a figure walking with a male or female gait among distractors with the opposite motion. In both experiments, the set size was varied between 1 and 4, and targets were present on 50 of the trials. The results suggest that (a) visual search can be used to explore gender-from-motion, (b) extraction of gender-from-motion is fairly inefficient (search slopes often exceed 500 ms item-1), and (c) there appears to be an observer-gender by target - gender interaction, with male observers producing lower RTs for female targets and vice versa.