A new demonstration of our walker, now in full 3D, is available using an experimental web technology called WebGL that is becoming available. Click here for more information!

I didn't maintain the news ticker very well but that doesn't mean that there haven't been any news. Here is an attempt to catch up:
1. Many new studies have been published. Visit the new, updated, re-designed publication site.
2. The BMLwalker got featured at the Paralympics in Vancouver in Febuary 2010 where it was installed to draw attention to the "snowglobe" tent in the centre of Wistler.
3. A much larger exhibit around the walker is currently installed at the Health & Sunshine Pavilion at he World Expo in Shanghai.

A new experiment has been added to the website. View short point-light animations of men and women performing various actions and try and guess their sex!

Discovery Channel's Daily Planet produced a segment that features graduate student Dorita Chang, undergraduate Minyan Wang and their Inversion Goggle experiment. It was aired twice on Nov. 17, and can now be watched online on YouTube.

A blog has been set up to document the experiences of a researcher and subject going through a 10-day experiment involving vertical-inversion goggles. Follow their interesting adventures and results on the blog.

There is a new attraction for the citizens of Berlin and visitors to the national capital from all over the world: The Otto Bock Science Center was officially inaugurated today in the presence of Federal Minister of External Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Premier of Thuringia Dieter Althaus, Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit and several hundred guests. The building features two versions of the BMLwalker on the outside of the building, each about 12 m high. Visit the Science Centre at the Potsdamer Platz or catch a wonderful view of it from the visitor glass dome on top of the Reichstag if you happen to be in Berlin after sunset.
For more information, Click Here.

A new iPhone application using the BML Walker is available for free! Click HERE to download it for your iPhone or iPod Touch!

A number of students and staff in the BioMotionLab have put together a little movie which features graduate student Emma Ware performing an exciting break dance while being motion captured in the lab. Check it out.

Over the past months another four papers written by members and collaborators of the BioMotionLab have been published:
1. Provost, M. P., Quinsey, V. L. and Troje, N. F. (2008) Differences in gait across the menstrual cycle. Archives of Sexual Behaviour 37:598–604. Link to the paper
2. Freitag, C. M., Konrad, C., Häberlen, M., Kleser, C., von Gontard, A., Reith, W., Troje, N. F., Krick, C. (2008) Perception of biological motion in autism spectrum disorders. Neuropsychologia 46:1480-1494. Link to the paper
3. Jiménez Ortega, L., Stoppa, K., Güntürkün, O., Troje, N. F. (2008) Limits of intraocular and interocular transfer in pigeons. Behavioural Brain Research 193:69-78. Link to the paper
4. Brooks, A., Schouten, B., Troje, N. F., Verfaillie, K., Blanke, O., van der Zwan, R. (2008) Correlated changes in perceptions of the gender and the orientation of ambiguous biological motion figures. Current Biology 18:R728-729. Link to the paper

Observers can determine the facing direction of a walker even in the absence of structural information. What is it in the motions of the individual dots that carry the directional information? We investigate this question in our new evolution experiment. To participate, click here.

Aaen-Stockdale, C., Thompson, B.,  Hess, R. F., Troje, N. F. (2008) Biological motion perception is cue-invariant. Journal of Vision 8(8):6,1-11. Link to the paper

Chang, D. H. F. and Troje, N. F. (2008) Perception of animacy and direction from local biological motion signals. Journal of Vision 8(5):3, 1-10. Link to the paper

The article summarizes the results of former MSc student Andrej König: Link

The BML now has a new PhD candidate.

Thompson, B., Troje, N. F., Hansen, B. C. and Hess R. F. (2008) Amblyopic perception of biological motion. Journal of Vision 8(4):22, 1-14. Link to the paper

König, A., Schölmerich, A., Troje, N. F. (2008) Geschlechtsspezifische Entwicklung der Anatomie und Gangdynamik im Kindes- und Jugendalter. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie 40:32-39. Link to the paper

Provost, M. P., Troje, N. F. and Quinsey, V. L. (2008) Short term mating strategies and attraction to masculinity in point-light walkers. Evolution and Human Behavior 29:65-69.  Link to the paper

Giles Holland who has worked in the lab during the summer 2006 joined the BML now as a new graduate student. Welcome, Giles!

Thompson, B., Hansen, B. C., Hess, R. F. and Troje, N. F. (2007) Peripheral vision: Good for biological motion, bad for signal noise segregation? Journal of Vision 7(10):12, 1-7
Link to the paper

Troje, N. F. (2002) Decomposing biological motion: A framework for analysis and synthesis of human gait patterns,  Journal of Vision, 2:371-387, has been downloaded from the journal's web page on average 2.2 times per day over the first 1000 days since publication and thus leads the list of the most demanded 20 papers in one of the most significant journals in vision science.
Link to the paper
Link to the hit list

Westhoff, C. and Troje, N. F. (2007) Kinematic cues for person identification from biological motion. Perception & Psychophysics 69: 241-253. Please send reprint requests to troje@post.queensu.ca
Link to the abstract

Liedvogel, M., Feenders, G., Wada, K., Troje, N. F., Jarvis, E. D. and Mouritsen, H. (in press) Lateralized activation of Cluster N in the brains of migratory songbirds. European Journal of Neuroscience 25:1166-1173. Please send reprint requests to troje@post.queensu.ca
Link to the abstract

Zhang, Z. and Troje, N. F. (2007) 3D Periodic Human Motion Reconstruction from 2D Motion Sequences. Neural Computation 19:1400-1421. Please send reprint requests to troje@post.queensu.ca
Link to the abstract

Folta, K., Troje, N. F., Güntürkün, O. (2007) Timing ofascending and descending visual signals predicts the response mode ofsingle cells in the thalamic nucleus rotundus of the pigeon (Columbalivia). Brain Research 1132: 100-109. Please send reprint requests to troje@post.queensu.ca
Link to the abstract

Flash artist /website designer (part time)
Link to Job description

Vocks S., Legenbauer, T., Troje, N.F., Rüddel, H. and Schulte, D. (2007) Static and Dynamic BodyImage in Bulimia Nervosa: Mental Representation of Body Dimensions andBiological Motion Patterns. International Journal of Eating Disorders40:59-66. Please send reprint requests to troje@post.queensu.ca
Link to the abstract

A short German online video show thatconnects our research on sex-specific differences in walking behaviourto the American elections results in 150,000 visits to our webpage in asingle day.
Here is the clip