You hear footsteps approaching from behind and somehow know exactly who is coming, before the person says a word or appears in your line of sight. Perhaps your friend's shoes have a familiar rhythm, their steps are unusually heavy, or you recognize the characteristic pace they use when walking down the hallway. This seemingly ordinary ability is actually connected to auditory perception, biological motion, pattern recognition, familiarity and person perception. Research suggests that human identity is not represented only through faces and voices. The way someone moves can also provide information about who they are, while the sounds produced by walking contain temporal and acoustic cues that the brain can learn to recognize.
