Estimations of biological motion walking direction are affected by observer and walker genders

A facing-towards bias is commonly reported when observers are asked to judge the motion directions of others. However, it remains unclear just how accurately observers are able to estimate the motion direction of others and whether the gender of the observer and the walker affects the direction estimation. Here, we asked male and female participants to estimate the direction of a point-light walker (PLW) in three experiments. The gender of PLWs was neutral (Experiment 1, 96 participants), clearly male or female (Experiment 2, 72 participants), or more subtlety male or female (Experiment 3, 98 participants). We found that female PLWs showed a stronger reference repulsion bias (RRB) than male PLWs. That is, for female PLWs, the estimates of facing directions were biased away from the boundaries of facing-towards, facing-away, and lateral (left/right)-motion directions. Interestingly, RRBs differed depending on whether the observer was male or female. When the PLW gender difference was clear, the RRB was stronger for female participants than male participants; when the PLW gender difference was reduced, the trend disappeared or was reversed. Finally, the perceived PLW direction was biased towards the previously seen PLW direction, showing serial dependence that was not affected by the PLW and observer genders. In conclusion, the current study shows that observers can accurately estimate PLW directions, but that judgments are curiously affected by both the observers' and PLWs' genders.