Action and emotion recognition from point light displays: an investigation of gender differences.

ABSTRACT: Folk psychology advocates the existence of gender differences in socio-cognitive functions such as 'reading' the mental states of others or discerning subtle differences in body-language. A female advantage has been demonstrated for emotion recognition from facial expressions, but virtually nothing is known about gender differences in recognizing bodily stimuli or body language. The aim of the present study was to investigate potential gender differences in a series of tasks, involving the recognition of distinct features from point light displays (PLDs) depicting bodily movements of a male and female actor. Although recognition scores were considerably high at the overall group level, female participants were more accurate than males in recognizing the depicted actions from PLDs. Response

SUBMITTER: Alaerts K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3111458 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature