Biological motion is a term used by social and cognitive neuroscientists to refer to the unique visual phenomenon of a moving, animate object. Often, the stimuli used in biological motion experiments are just a few moving dots that reflect the motion of some key joints of the moving organism. Gunnar Johansson invented these point light displays.

History

Early work suggested that the brain may contain mechanisms specialised for the detection of other humans from motion signals, but over the years this claim has been scaled down to the point where some authors now suggest that we have more generalised detectors tuned simply to the characteristic signal generated by the feet of a locomoting animal.

Neuroimaging

The superior temporal sulcus is known to be activated for biological motion perception. Also, premotor cortex is important, which indicates that the mirror neuron system is recruited for "filling in" the dots .

Neuropsychology

In a large study with stroke patients, regions that emerged to be statistically associated with deficient biological motion perception included the superior temporal lobe

Temporal lobe

The temporal lobe is a region of the cerebral cortex that is located beneath the Sylvian fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain....

 sulcus

Sulcus (neuroanatomy)

In neuroanatomy, a sulcus is a depression or fissure in the surface of the brain.It surrounds the gyri, creating the characteristic appearance of the brain in humans and other large mammals....

 and premotor cortex

Premotor cortex

The premotor cortex is an area of motor cortex lying within the frontal lobe of the brain. It extends 3 mm anterior to the primary motor cortex, near the Sylvian fissure, before narrowing to approximately 1 mm near the medial longitudinal fissure, which serves as the posterior border for...

. The cerebellum also is important .

A recent study on a patient with developmental agnosia found intact biological motion, but deficient perception of non-biological form from motion