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ERIC Number: EJ845726
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Aug
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0010-0277
EISSN: N/A
Using Movement and Intentions to Understand Human Activity
Zacks, Jeffrey M.; Kumar, Shawn; Abrams, Richard A.; Mehta, Ritesh
Cognition, v112 n2 p201-216 Aug 2009
During perception, people segment continuous activity into discrete events. They do so in part by monitoring changes in features of an ongoing activity. Characterizing these features is important for theories of event perception and may be helpful for designing information systems. The three experiments reported here asked whether the body movements of an actor predict when viewers will perceive event boundaries. Body movements were recorded using a magnetic motion tracking system and compared with viewers' segmentation of his activity into events. Changes in movement features were strongly associated with segmentation. This was more true for fine-grained than for coarse-grained boundaries, and was strengthened when the stimulus displays were reduced from live-action movies to simplified animations. These results suggest that movement variables play an important role in the process of segmenting activity into meaningful events, and that the influence of movement on segmentation depends on the availability of other information sources. (Contains 4 tables and 6 figures.)
Elsevier. 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, FL 32887-4800. Tel: 877-839-7126; Tel: 407-345-4020; Fax: 407-363-1354; e-mail: usjcs@elsevier.com; Web site: http://www.elsevier.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A