Abstract
Introduction The Common Coding Theory (Prinz, 1997; Hommel et al., 2001) suggests that perception and action share a common representation and hypothesizes accordingly: 1) people should better perceive motions that are produced by their own action; 2) people should better perceive actions at which they are skilled. We now test these hypotheses using point-light displays of experts throwing to hit targets at different distances and heights. Methods Using videos of 6 experts throwing to hit targets at 3 distances (5m, 10m, 15m) and 3 heights (.5m, 1m, 1.5m) 5 times each, we created 45 point-light displays for expert and novice throwers to judge the distance and height of targets. Point lights were attached to 7 major joints of the thrower including the ball and only throwing motion was displayed up to ball release. Expert and novice throwers judged displays of throws by other experts. Experts also judged displays of themselves. Results All observers were well above chance in judging distance (54.8%±8.1>33.3%), height (51.4%±8.6>33.3%) and both (28.6%±9>11.1%). A repeated-measures ANOVA on expert judgments testing identity (self, other) was significant for distance (F1,5 = 8.66, p<0.05, self: 52%, other: 62%), and for height (F1,5 = 9.31 , p<0.05, self: 48%, other: 56%). Other was always judged better than self! A factorial ANOVA on judgments of other testing skill level (expert, novice) was significant for distance (F1,10 = 9.55, p <0.01, experts: 62%, novices: 50%), but not for height (p>0.05, experts: 56%, novices: 50%). Conclusion The first hypothesis was rejected because experts judging other were better than they judging self. The second hypothesis was only partly supported because experts judging other were better than novices judging other only in respect to distance, not height.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2013