University of Abderdeen study shows humans ‘take mental snapshot’ of someones body

November 2, 2016

Scientists find a person’s mannerisms play large part in identification
Humans ‘take mental snapshot’ of someone’s body and gestures
Research carried out at University of Aberdeen using ‘CGI men’
It means Lois Lane has no excuse for not realising Clark Kent is Superman

Victoria Allen, Science Correspondent For The Daily Mail

Published:
20:42 EDT, 31 October 2016

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Updated:
22:05 EDT, 31 October 2016

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Taking off your glasses and pulling on a cape and a pair of tights is not all that much of a disguise.

And new research shows there really is little excuse for Lois Lane not to realise Clark Kent is Superman when watching him in action.

Scientists have found the way in which someone moves plays a large part in being able to identify them.

While faces are important, it appears we take a mental snapshot of someone’s body, their gestures and mannerisms, too.

Scientists at the University of Aberdeen have found humans take ‘mental snapshots’ of people’s gestures and mannerisms meaning Lois Lane should have recognised Clark Kent was Superman (pictured are Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve in Superman II)

As social animals, our need to interpret and predict the actions of others has made us particularly sensitive to human movement.

It means when Clark Kent takes his glasses off to fight crime, he is still recognisable, while we can also judge someone’s gender, age and emotional state simply by the way they move.

Researchers at Aberdeen University proved the point by creating two computer-generated men, ‘Joachim’ and ‘Denis’, and asking people to identify them.

One of the characters performed professional karate movements, with another given amateur moves.

When their faces were jumbled, participants were still able to identify them based on their movement, despite being given no guidance to do this.

Interestingly, the less we can recognise someone, the more the study showed we rely on watching them in action.

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Dr Karin Pilz, from the School of Psychology at the University of Aberdeen, said: ‘The current perception is that identity recognition is usually done on faces alone but obviously body motion is also important because we usually see people as whole bodies.

‘Even in difficult conditions, we are really good at person recognition and so, I think it’s important to understand that we’re using information other than faces so we can get an insight into how we achieve this unique skill.’

The face remains the main source of information we use when recognising others, but body movement recognition kicks in far more strongly when we cannot recognise them.

The British study confirmed this by using faces with the same hairstyle, ears and face outline, so that people were not distracted by other factors.

Joachim was given the professional karate moves, and Denis the amateur ones, before their faces were morphed.

It means Kent would be recognisable as Superman even though he has taken off his glasses (played here by Henry Cavill and Amy Adams in Batman v Superman)

The 16 participants in the study, asked to identify Joachim or Denis, then used their movements to judge who they were.

This judgement became so important eventually that, even when the face contained more of Denis’s features than Joachim’s, people still used the movements to judge who it was over facial characteristics.

Dr Pilz said: ‘Our results show that we are able to use body motion when other cues are ambiguous or unavailable, so we basically assume that we can use body motion as a reliable cue to identity when other information is less available or reliable such as when a person is far away or when they’re in bad lighting conditions.

‘I’ve always questioned why Lois Lane doesn’t recognise Clark Kent or why Bruce Wayne has never been identified as Batman – now we know that they should be recognised based on their body motion.’