The influence of motor expertise and motor experience on action and actor recognition

Abstract

Two experiments examined whether different levels of motor and visual experience influence action perception and whether this effect depends on the type of perceptual task. Within an action recognition task (Experiment 1), professional basketball players and novice college students were asked to identify basketball dribbles from point-light displays. Results showed faster reaction times and greater accuracy in experts, but no advantage when observing either own or teammates’ actions compared with unknown expert players. Within an actor recognition task (Experiment 2), the same expert players were asked to identify the model actors. Results showed poor discrimination between teammates and players from another team, but a more accurate assignment of own actions to the own team. When asked to name the actor, experts recognised themselves slightly better than teammates. Results support the hypothesis that motor experience influences action recognition. They also show that the influence of motor experience on the perception of own actions depends on the type of perceptual task.

Keywords:

• Anticipation
• Basketball
• Biological motion
• Motor experience
• Point-light displays
• Visual experience

Acknowledgements

Tanja Hohmann is now at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. This research was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Research Group 560 “Action and Perception”) for Jörn Munzert. The authors thank Jonathan Harrow for native speaker advice.