In our previous post, we mentioned that our paper “is the motion of a child perceivably different from the motion of an adult?” will be published in the Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP) journal. The paper focused on investigating if naïve viewers can tell the difference between adult and child motion through a two-alternative forced choice survey. We found that naïve viewers can identify a motion belonging to a child versus that belonging to an adult significantly above chance levels. Furthermore, we found that the type of action (e.g., jumping jacks, walking, running) being performed affects the accuracy of people’s perceptions of children or adults, possibly due to coordination or other cues. From these findings, we want to investigate what are the quantifiable characteristics of the motions that can explain the differences between perception of child and adult motions.

Working on the POSE project has been an exciting and informative experience for me in the first year of my PhD program. It has introduced me to the rich field of whole body interaction, which has become the focus of my research. I also plan to apply this knowledge as I dig deeper into the field of whole body interaction and movement-based games for my thesis work.