A system to support non-IT researchers in the automated analysis of human movement

Analysis of human movement data is a core topic of many research studies in human-human and human-computer interaction. Whereas, on the one side, automated movement analysis is often based on the application of sophisticated computer science techniques (e.g., motion tracking from video recordings), on the other side the interdisciplinary nature of research in this area requires the availability of tools that can be used by researchers who may not have an advanced computer science expertise. This paper presents a system enabling users, who are not necessarily computer scientists, to perform motion tracking from a dataset of video recordings. The system – consisting of a set of (freely downloadable) tools accessible by means of user friendly graphical interfaces – was designed, developed, and tested in the context of a project for automated analysis of entrainment in ensemble music performance, following the needs and requirements of musicologists and psychologists.