Hip swing and asymmetric movements of the thighs and arms are all traits of a good dancer, according to the respondents (McCarty et al.)
Believe it or not, there seems to be a formula for being a good dancer. According to a new study, it’s all about the degree of hip swing and moving thighs and arms in an asymmetrical manner. To distill this formula, researchers asked 39 women to dance to a simple drum beat and recorded their moves. The women’s movement patterns were then rendered onto computer avatars to remove any distinguishing features other than the dance moves themselves. Researchers then asked people to rate the moves of different avatars. Afterwards, they compared the ratings to quantified measurements of the dancers’ moves, and found three prominent trends.
Authors:
Kristofor McCarty, Hannah Darwin, Piers L. Cornelissen, Tamsin K. Saxton, Martin J. Tovée, Nick Caplan & Nick Neave
Corresponding author:
Nick Neave, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, Email: nick.neave@northumbria.ac.uk, Tel: +44 1912 274476
Original paper published in Nature: Scientific Reports on February 9, 2017.
