Four hundred msecs vision of a runner permits teammate identification

Some aspects of perceiving biological motion seem to be innate for humans (Dittrich, 1993). The ability to recognize an action and an individual from minimal visual information has been explored extensively in studies using point light displays to examine highly reduced displays of various forms of human movement eg. walking, running (Johansson, 1973). In sports, however the information comes not from reduction of visual information to point lights but from reduction in time availability. To date, although studies have examined perception of patterns of play (Williams, 2006) identifying individuals as teammate from only minimal visual information, such as needs to occur when teammates offer ball-passing opportunities, has not been studied.