Item

Abstract

Humans daily interact with other people. Many of these interactions are physical interactions, e.g. when shaking the hand of another person. The human ability to read bodily signals is critical for successful social interaction. For example, knowing whether the interaction partner moves his hand for a punch or a handshake is essential for the production of an appropriate complementary response. How are humans able to read another person's actions? The aim of the course is to shed light onto how humans derive knowledge about another person's action by visual observation (action recognition). The course will discuss critical factors influencing action recognition from the perspective of various fields including philosophy, perception, cognition, neuroscience, and computational vision. The aim is to provide an integrative view of how humans recognize actions. In addition, the course will also discuss methodological issues (e.g. motion capture techniques) relevant for action recognition research. At the end of the course, students should have a firm understanding about action recognition.