ABSTRACT
Numerous investigations have shown that the visual perception of events involving living creatures can be supported by purely kinematic (movement) patterns. Such properties would include the weight of objects being manipulated, the effort necessary for an action, and more broadly, “the intentions, expectations, moods, and abilities” of a person that may influence the course of an event. The success of experiments showing that kinematics alone can specify the dynamics of human action has led some researchers to accept, tacitly or explicitly, that static configurations of the human form are normally not informative about event dynamics – or even if they are, their importance is less than that of kinematic factors. Each of 8 observers viewed 160 photographs in a completely within-individual design, and provided ratio weight judgments. Analysis of individual observers’ performance revealed that even for the depiction of intention to lift a box (Before Grip), one of the eight observers discriminated weight levels.
