Identifying runners as football teammates from 400 msec. video clips

Ability to recognize a runner as a teammate from only a brief visual exposure is suggested from research on gait recognition with point-light displays and has particular importance for ball-passing in sports. 15 touch football players of mean age 20 yr. (SD=0.7), on two teams of 7 wk. standing, observed 31 400-msec, video clips of running individuals whose familiarity varied from high to low. These were their teammates, players from the other team, or nonfootball players. After viewing each clip, participants rated their certainty that each running player was a teammate. Despite the brevity of the visual display, overall performance at discriminating teammates from other runners was significantly better than chance, and accuracy did not differ between colour or black-and-white formats. Recognition of teammates was better if familiar nonteammates were removed from the set of analyzed clips and worse if unfamiliar nonplayers were removed.