Discriminating throwing distances from point-light displays with masked ball flight

Previous research on recognising action features from point-light displays (PLDs) has focused on cues linked directly to the observed action. This paper presents two experiments examining the feasibility of predicting nonvisible movement outcomes from PLDs. A total of 127 sports students aged 19–37 years compared the distances of two throws in boules with masked ball flight. In Experiment 1, models were depicted as either full or reduced (only arm) PLDs and contrasted with a video condition. Results showed no differences between conditions, but better discrimination performance for larger differences between throwing distances. Experiment 2 reduced information even further. Both a reduction of PLDs to one point representing the hand and a reduction of the time course of the arm up to the point of ball release had detrimental effects on discrimination performance. Results are discussed in relation to concepts postulating the use of motor representations for movement observation.