Recognition of facial expressions and biological motion

Abstract

Johansson (1973) showed that human movements such as walking can be recognized from a small number of dots fixed at various parts of the body (biological motion). We investigate whether people can also recognize facial expressions of emotion from movement of a small number of dots and the roll of motion information on recognition of facial expressions. Our results reveal that motion of as few as 18 dots attached to appropriate locations on a human face provides sufficient information to recognize facial expressions.