textarea | Some theoretical questions include: will people be able to identify the sex of the walkers by only pinpoints of light? What features of the gait allow for people to correctly guess the sex? Are people able to guess that the lights represent people?
Some empirical questions addressed include: Why was Walker 1 misidentified so often? Did armswing and gait act as cues for people to correctly determine the sex? Did speed of walk have an effect on people's answers? | name | Tucker Meijer | Submit_button_x | 15 | Submit_button_y | 12 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The theoretical question in the experiment is the visual cues needed to identify a behavior, and whether and what variation in the transformational invariant, walking, could lead to the discrimination of the structural invariant, the sex of the people shown by the points of light. Their experiment is investigating if humans are able to perceive differences in the sex of a person simply based on the pattern of movement of the joints in their bodies, without any added hints of their clothes, figure, or face. They tested whether the static images of joints was enough to make subjects think of a person walking and showed that static images alone were not enough. They tried to vary the arm swing or speed of walking of individuals and found that it did not bias the subjects to thinking a faster walker or a greater arm swinger was a female but generally decreased the identifiability of the walk. They then tested the essential elements of the stimulus by breaking it down to its constituent parts. They showed that no point is critical for the correct identification of gender, but upper body points, especially arms are the most helpful stimuli in judging sex based on movement. | name | Rakin Muhtadi | Submit_button_x | 36 | Submit_button_y | 18 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The theoretical question addressed in this experiment would be whether or not it is possible to identify the sex of a walker from dynamic reflective dots. The empirical questions addressed if the angle of the arm swing or speed of walking changed the ability of people to identify the correct gender. | name | Annie Chen | Submit_button_x | 0 | Submit_button_y | 0 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The empirical question was telling the difference between the process of walking for each sex. The theoretical question was determining how holistic the process of walking is and its affect on determining the sex, in which they find that the body part being observed is insignificant to determining the correct sex, while changing the "grammar" of walking lowers the probability that the subject will guess the sex correctly. So Kozlowski and Cutting can conclude that walking is a holistic process. | name | Mae Cromwell | Submit_button_x | 30 | Submit_button_y | 13 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Kozlowski and Cutting's experiments answered the theoretical and empirical questions of whether or not sex could be recognized through dynamic point display and static point display, whether or not arm swing effected identification, whether or not walking speed effected identification, and which joints signify one sex or the other. The results showed that subjects more accurately and confidently determined sex when the experiment involved dynamic point display and that static display made it significantly harder for the subject to identify sex. Variation in walking speed and arm swinging hindered accurate identification. The unnatural motion of the swinging arms often confused subjects. Fast walking women were the easiest to identify out of the variations in Experiment Four. Essentially, there is no specific joint(s) that when presented alludes to the sex of the walker.  | name | Kelly Kim | Submit_button_x | 30 | Submit_button_y | 14 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Their theoretical question was whether people could determine sex simply by viewing a person walking. Not only was the presented information only walking, but it involved only points of light on different joints on the body (acting to illuminate said body parts). These were presented to viewers as either "dynamic" presentations where a video of a person walking was shown, or "static" presentations in which the viewer was only shown pictures of the person walking. Their question was whether sex could be determined simply from these presentations. 

Empirically they questioned whether different aspects of walking, i.e. speed and arm swing, affected sex determination in the viewer. They also addressed what specific illuminated parts of the body  were most useful in correctly determining sex of a walker. | name | Jeff Anderson | Submit_button_x | 32 | Submit_button_y | 15 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Kozolowski and Cutting addressed the question whether "viewers can recognize the sex of a walker from a dynamic point-light display." Additionally, they wanted to find what specific cues identify females from males while walking. They also sought to see if sex recognition was possible in static light display. They also wondered and then demonstrated that sexes have distinct patterns or "grammar" for walking behaviors.  | name | Advaita Rao- Sharma | Submit_button_x | 33 | Submit_button_y | 5 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The theoretical question addressed by Kozlowski and Cutting's experiments is whether the point-lights moving as a result of human walking give indication of a person's sex. The empirical questions asked for the first experiment is whether subjects are able to determine the sex of a "walker" based on point-lights placed on the walker's joints. The 2nd experiment's empirical question seeks to answer whether static images of these walkers can be used to determine sex. The 3rd and 4th experiments seek to explore how varying arm swing or walking speed affect subjects' ability to identify sex. Finally the 5th experiment looks to answer whether removing some of these lights affects subjects' ability to identify sex. | name | Eugene Lee | Submit_button_x | 37 | Submit_button_y | 13 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | q | name | Q | Submit_button_x | 32 | Submit_button_y | 11 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | One theoretical question they considered was based on the work of Gunnar Johansson, who explored the idea of biological motion perception. Maas and Johnsson posed the  question of whether it was possible to recognize the sex of a person from the sort of dynamic displays that Johansson had used. Kozlowski and Cutting dug deeper into this, conducting experiments meant to answer this question. Some empirical questions sprung up, such as: Was it also possible to recognize the sex of a walker from a similar static display? and based on the misidentification rate of Walker 1 in their first experiment: Did a more pronounced arm swing or faster walking speed lead to identification as female?. They then began to wonder what else could alter the viewer's ability to identify the sex of the walker, since experiments 3 and 4 yielded little significant data. They then asked whether specific joints or body parts increased the rate at which correct identifications were made and whether viewer distance from the stimuli had any effect. | name | Yariana Diaz | Submit_button_x | 15 | Submit_button_y | 15 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The theoretical question addressed were whether or not participants could identify the sex of a walking person just from abstract light displays. Another theoretical question was whether or not they could identify the lights as a person's body at all. The empirical questions addressed were how many males and females were identified correctly, depending on a number of experimental changes, including the placement of the lights or whether it was a static or dynamic display.  | name | Alexis Sinclair  | Submit_button_x | 33 | Submit_button_y | 12 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Some theoretical and empirical questions addressed:
Can viewers recognize the sex of a walker through the use of a dynamic point-light display? How important is the dynamic nature of this display? How influential is the transformational invariant in identifying sex? What clues/feedback are necessary for identification? | name | Marah Brubaker | Submit_button_x | 26 | Submit_button_y | 16 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | b | name | b | Submit_button_x | 10 | Submit_button_y | 14 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The main theoretical question the authors were trying to answer was: "Is it possible to recognize the sex of a human walker when you can't see familiar cues like arms and legs." The authors used reflective tape, some clever lighting, and the contrast on their camera to make only points of light at major joints visible on the walker. The first experiment asked if sex could be identified based on video of the point-light covered walkers in motion (Result: it could). The second experiment asked if sex could be identified based on still images of the walkers walking (Result: it couldn't). The third and fourth experiments asked what cues might aid in the recognition of the walker's sex (Result: walking speed had a small effect on recognition). The final experiment asked if sex could be identified when lights at some joints were removed (Result: it could). | name | Matthew Bonomo | Submit_button_x | 24 | Submit_button_y | 26 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Theoretical questions seek hypotheses. They have no right or wrong conclusions. One of the main theoretical questions addressed in the article was the question of how people perceive biological motion. Kozlowski and Cutting’s experiments investigated how individuals could be recognized and identified (by sex) in an array of dynamic point lights. These experiments drew upon concepts such as the direct perception and perceptual invariance to show how walking appears to be a holistic act. Empirical questions are clearly defined and can be answered using data collected during experimentation. In Kozlowski and Cutting’s experiments, there were three main empirical questions. The first question investigated whether viewers could recognize the sex of a walker from a dynamic point-light display. The second empirical question was whether recognition of sex was dependent on the dynamic nature of display. (It was concluded that sex recognition was possible from a dynamic display, but not from a static one). Kozlowski and Cutting also chose to investigate why the sex of walker 1 was misidentified in experiment 1, and thus sought to determine what cues were used to determine the sex of a walker. This led to the development of experiments 3, 4 and 5. These experiments investigated the role of armswing/walking speed, and lower/upper joints in identification. In experiments 3 and 4, it was found that variation in the degree of armswing or walking speed interfered with recognition. In the fifth experiment, Kozlowski and Cutting sought to determine which joints are necessary and which joints are sufficient for the identification of a walker’s sex, and concluded from results that no specific “clue” is necessary for identification. | name | Hope Kim | Submit_button_x | 25 | Submit_button_y | 23 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Prompted by Gunnar Johansson's films in which point light sources are attached to people who, despite not being visible themselves, were clearly recognizable people, Kozlowski and Cutting endeavored to address the question of whether or not people could tell the sex of a person based only on a video of that person walking with only the lights on their body being visible. Their results showed that 5 out of 6 of the walkers had their sex correctly identified by the majority of viewers, with a positive correlation between accuracy and the subject's confidence in their guess. In their second experiment, Kozlowski and Cutting addressed the question of whether people would still be able to recognize that the figure with lights attached was a person and/or identify the sex of that person if they were only shown a static image of that person rather than a video. They found that only one subject correctly identified the lights as a person, and, when sorting the images based on sex, subjects were accurate a little less than half of the time (which is about what would be expected based solely on chance.) In experiments 3 and 4 the researchers attempted to identify the reason why one walker had been misidentified by a significant majority of viewers while the other 5 walkers were generally identified correctly. They also wanted to find out what characteristics of peoples' walks make them appear male or female to viewers. They found that females had more pronounced arm movements than men and the misidentified walker from the first study, walker 1, had the least arm swing of all the women. They also found that the female walkers walked faster than the males and walker 1 walked the slowest of the females. One of these observations (or a combination of the two) could be responsible for the misidentification of walker 1. | name | Maggie Shea | Submit_button_x | 34 | Submit_button_y | 13 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Theoretical: The broad question the article addressed was does sex recognition require familiarity cues for static and dynamic displays of humans walking? The article also made some theoretical assumptions that were not empirically tested. 1) Feedback on performance of correctly identifying point-light images is not necessary and does not play a role in ability to identify sex of point-light images. 2) Static light displays of people are not perceived differently than objects such as tree lights or star constellations when not given any other cues. 3) The study of gait between different walkers is not important in this study so although other factors such as mood (which theoretically may have affected the walkers gait) could have impacted the ability to identify the walker’s sex, it was not discussed. In experiments 3,4,5, the article addressed why was Walker 1’s sex not identifiable? Empirical: Can people identify the sex of a walker just from 4 dynamic point-light configurations? Are familiarity cues necessary to recognize sex of walker from dynamic vs static light displays? Does walking speed have an affect on ability to identify sex of walker? What about just armswing? Which body parts if any, are necessary are most helpful in identifying the sex of a walker- or is any joint sufficient?  | name | Kristina Fredriksen | Submit_button_x | 22 | Submit_button_y | 18 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Does an individual's gait provide enough clues for observers to reliably identify the walker's sex?
Do walking speed and arm swing play significant roles in sex identification?
Does information about an individual's gait need to be presented in the form of continuous film or can static images suffice? | name | Carlos Johnson-Cruz  | Submit_button_x | 20 | Submit_button_y | 16 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The main theoretical question that was addressed by the Kozlowski and Cutting experiment pertains to the structural information required in order for an event to be studied successfully and interpreted correctly. Specifically, the experimenters sought to investigate this question by limiting the observer’s visual stimuli to a collection of lights attached to an unseen individual. As concluded by the experiment, the motion of the lights provided sufficient information to allow for a correct interpretation of the event, specifically if the unseen individual was a man or woman. 

Next, another theoretical question that was investigated by Kozlowski and Cutting was whether or not static visual information, in contrast to moving light displays, would yield the same rate of correct interpretations of an event. To address this question, participants were provided with a series of photographs showing the arrangements of lights, which corresponded to the position of the unseen individual as they walked. Based on these photos alone, participants were tasked with identifying the sex of the unseen individual. 

The empirical questions that were addressed by Kozlowski and Cutting were extensive, and were based directly on observations made throughout the collection of data when investigating the theoretical questions listed above. Specifically, the empirical questions included the affect of arm swing, walking speed, and number of joints on the successful identification of an unseen individual’s gender.
 | name | Scott Nelson  | Submit_button_x | 0 | Submit_button_y | 0 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Theoretical - Can a person's sex be identified by their gait?

Empirical- can the sex of a person be determined without familiarity cues by using a dynamic light display on the joints as the person walks in various conditions?  | name | Gustavo Marino | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | Submit_button_x | 28 | Submit_button_y | 20 | 
textarea | Good Question! I’m not entirely sure. The two concepts are a bit fuzzy for me.
       In terms of empirical questions, the researchers first asked whether sex could be recognized just by the lit-up joints in motion, which it could, and then they tested whether it could be recognized through static images, which it could not. Next they varied armswing and walking speed, trying to determine what cues suggested female vs. male—this was in response to their previous experiments. Finally, they questioned what importance different joints had on sex identification.
 	My best guess is that the experiment is located within the theoretical framework of direct perception and perceptual invariance. The last paragraph states that “walking appears to be a holistic act. Information as abstract as the sex of the walker appears to be distributed through all the movement” and that “no feedback is required.” This would suggest that they follow Gibson’s belief that perceivers do little work because the environmental stimulus is rich enough to provide all the necessary information; any feedback in the experiment would be extraneous context. Also, they assumed beforehand, given the previous research done Johansson, that the sex of the walker would be recognized. This was an extension of previously established theory.
	I suppose, by trying to break down male-female identification into component elements (joints, armswing and walking pace) they are trying to see if this sex-identification conforms to the constructivist approach to perception, in which the perceiver is drawing upon aspects of the proximal stimulus (pace, hip movement) and actively interpreting them in the context of past experience and long-term memory, as opposed to direct perception, in which the information is already sufficiently abundant and well-organized for them. Their results and the last paragraph suggest that they interpret the data to be in favor of the theory of direct perception.
 | name | Katerina von Campe | Submit_button_x | 14 | Submit_button_y | 18 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The theoretical question was: Is it possible to recognize the sex of a person from a series of dynamic point lights? The theoretical question asked about the degree to which the sex of a walking person can be recognized depending on several factors. | name | Shaunpaul Jones | Submit_button_x | 33 | Submit_button_y | 20 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The experimenters examined whether or not it was possible to identify the sex of a person using point-light sources on that person's joints while they are walking. They also addressed if people could identify the sex of a stopped image of a person walking with the same point-light sources on their joints. They addressed whether or not it was walking speed or armswing that was responsible for the identification of the walker's sex. Then they questioned whether the display of certain joints determined a person's ability to identify the walker as male or female. However their main objective was not addressing theories of why males and females walk differently, rather they set out to discover the factors that affect identification of a walker's sex, | name | Christopher Roll | Submit_button_x | 27 | Submit_button_y | 15 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Empirically, the study attempted to determine the extent to which a person's sex can be identified by tracking the movement of his or her joints. It went on to deal with what joints are especially important in making such a judgment, and found some ways in which the success rate can be diminished by altering the "grammar" of a person's stride. Theoretically, the study dealt with a person's Gladwell-esque ability to automatically process a set of information of which they might not be able to consciously explain. While about 70% of the subjects were able to correctly identify the sex in the first study (aside from the androgynously-walking number 1), it is unlikely that any of them could explain the nuances of the male and female stride.  | name | Jack Malague | Submit_button_x | 25 | Submit_button_y | 11 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | In Kozlowski and Cutting's experiments they addressed whether we are able to make judgments about structural invariants (sex) through transformational invariants (walking). They sought to find the accuracy of recognition given the least amount of information. They observed the correct identification of sex from dynamic displays and static displays of gait. They also observed how the different aspects of gait affected the correct identification of sex. | name | Sophia Lesperance | Submit_button_x | 32 | Submit_button_y | 22 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The experiments 1 and 2 were designed to adress theoretical question about understanding the sex of a walker based on familiarity cues we get from illuminated major joints. The first experiment  dealt with this question in a dynamic setting and asked experimenters to walk as we could only see their major joints by point-light sources. The participants would see clips of these motions and first asked to identify the object. This was based on a theoretical question of how much cues do we need to associate an image with humans. Then, participants would be asked to identify sexes, and the results were satisfactory for all the Walkers except Walker 1 who was identified more as a male as an actual female. The second experiment took photos of these walking motions and asked the participants to identify the sexes, which did not prove to be efficient. This showed us the need of seeing body language while walking to understand genders, thus made static displays unsufficient. Since the Walker 1 turned out to be an anomaly, the conductors of this experiment wanted to understand the reasons behind such a distortion. They wanted to see the individual effects of armswinging, speed of walking as Walker 1 had the fastest walk among women and least armswing(Both of these traits could be attributed to males more.) These empirical questions lead to experiments 3 and 4, which lead to experiment 5. Experiment 3 tested out scenarios in which 4 Walkers including 1 would have normal, smaller and larger than normal armswings while walking. The quantity of armswing did not create much difference in identification, only distortion. Experiment 4 tested out scenarios in which 4 Walkers were asked to walk in normal, faster or slower than normal speeds. It turned out that faster speeds, especially in females, lead to more correct identifications. It helped the participants to identify Walker 1 as female more. To understand the effect of gait in gender identification more, the experiment 5 focused on places of joints. Although I anticipated hips and elbows would lead to more correct identifications, all different configurations of joints were sufficient. However the upper body joints were slightly more identifiable. | name | Yagmur Idil Ozdemir | Submit_button_x | 35 | Submit_button_y | 20 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | A theoretical question that was addressed by Kozlowski and Cutting's (1977) experiments was whether dynamic point-light displays can be utilized to decipher an individuals sex. It is already known that one can identify oneself and one's friend using dynamic visual cues. Some of the empirical questions that Kozlowski and Cutting (1977) addressed are: Which joints are required for determining an individual's sex from a dynamic point-light display?;and does gait, walking speed, and arm swing interfere with one's ability to determine an individual's sex from dynamic point-light displays? | name | Alifayaz Abdulzahir | Submit_button_x | 26 | Submit_button_y | 18 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Kozlowski and Cuttings ran five different experiments to test if a persons gender can be guessed by the way they walk and why. First, they tested whether there is any truth to this idea. After finding about 70% of participants guessed correctly, they tested why, and found that women walk faster and with more arm swing than men. Then, Kozlowski and Cuttings tested whether or not it would effect one's ability to guess gender if they manipulated a persons walking pace and arm swing (the answer being yes). Lastly, they tested whether certain body parts were more useful for gender identification.  | name | Michael Riopel  | Submit_button_x | 0 | Submit_button_y | 0 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Theoretical questions in the experiments included whether people could recognize the genders of walkers and how well they could recognize the walking motion when there were less lights to represent moving joints. Empirical questions included whether people were more likely to recognize gender from viewing moving pictures or static images, and whether the walking speed or magnitude of armswing affected viewers' assumption of gender.  | name | Amber Liu | Submit_button_x | 18 | Submit_button_y | 13 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html |