Perception of Sex From Complex Body Movement in Young Children

Abstract

This article reports on a study of the perception of sex from complex body movement. Studies by Cutting and his associates (Barclay, Cutting, & Kozlowski, 1978; Kozlowski & Cutting, 1977) and by Runeson and Frykholm (1983) have shown that adult observers of both adult and child actors (11-12 years old) can reliably recognize the sex of the actor. In this study, prepubescent actors (4-5 years old) were employed, and the role of familiarity of observers with children of this age was also examined. Ten children (4-5 years old), 5 boys and 5 girls, performed 7 actions similar to those employed in Runeson and Frykholm's study: walking in a circle, running in a circle, throwing a ball, lifting a box, sitting on the floor, sitting on a chair, and climbing onto a chair and jumping down. Point-light displays were made of each child performing each action. Each actor was recorded performing each action once. An experimental tape was prepared in which all 70 acts from the source tape appeared in a counterbalanced order such that each child appeared once in each block of 10 trials and each action appeared once in each block of 7 trials. The effect of familiarity was explored by employing 3 different groups of observers: the parents of the child actors, a group of adults familiar with children of this age, and a student group of young adults not familiar with children of this age. The overall detection rate was only just above chance and none of the observer groups performed better than chance. Sex was reliably perceived, however, for particular actors and for particular actions. The implications of these findings for Runeson and Frykholm's kinematics specifies dynamics principle are noted.