TIME ESTIMATION AND EYE-TRACKING MOVEMENTS IN HUMAN BODY STATIC IMAGES

According to Body Movement Ranking Scale (BMRS) same duration static images with 1.5 and 3.0-point stimuli were estimated as shorter than 6.0-point; 1.5 and 3.0-point were underestimated; 6.0-point were overestimated regarding real time by untrained participants. This study examined the eye-tracking movements to describe where and how often body parts in different positions were observed. Stimuli were photographic images of 3 Degas dancer sculptures ordered by BMRS geometric progression. Images were presented to participant groups untrained, dance trained and visual arts trained whose tasks were to observe the images and estimate the presentation time duration. Although image pattern observation was similar in 3 participant groups, most attention to arms and legs was observed in the sculpture with more movement and more attention to head and trunk to sculptures with less represented movement. Dance trained participants underestimated 6.0-point image; art trained participants estimated it as the same duration of real time. In the dancer sculptures of Edgar Degas, the sculpted bodies in body positions with physical balance which is difficult to maintain for a long time can evoke in the observer the movement unfoldings which are about to happen (NATHER, 2007; NATHER; BUENO, 2009). It is possible that when observing these works the participant differentially processes represented movements due to the different asymmetries from the relations among the positions of body parts (CUTTING, 2002) of this important visual element. Static images of the human body in implicit movements can induce dynamic mental representations related to the memory of recognizable movements (FREYD, 1983