Perception of Human Motion Similarity Based on Laban Movement Analysis

Metrics of similarity between human motion sequences are central to many motion retrieval, classification, and synthesis techniques. However, research on distance measures shows a lack of correlation between human perception and commonly used metrics such as dynamic time warping distance. This paper analyzes the perception of human motion similarity based on the intrinsic qualities of motion described by the Effort component of Laban Movement Analysis. We conducted an Amazon Mechanical Turk study to collect human judgments on the perceptual similarity of various motion styles to the baseline conditions. The results indicate that Effort factors impacting the flow of movement are perceptually more distinguishable than factors affecting the timing, weight, and spatial attention. The results also confirm the lack of correlation between the human perception of motion similarity and standard measures.