A Systematic Review of the Use of Motion Capture in the Digital Humanities

In this article, we present a Meta-Analysis of 103 papers that report on the use of motion capture technologies (mocap) in qualitative research and the digital humanities. We also provide a brief history of motion capture and an overview of current technologies available to researchers. Resultant analysis produced seven thematic categories of work in this area: Intangible Cultural Heritage, Research Creation, Motion in Music Performance, Dance Movement Analysis, Motion in Physical Performance, Embodied Cognition, and Computational Ethnography. Within these categories, we provide an overview of the types of motion capture technologies and analytical methods commonly deployed by researchers and practitioners. Our research further highlights discrepancies in documentation practices within the corpus regarding technologies, analytical methods, and workflows. Researchers in the digital humanities have historically identified unique opportunities to leverage computing technologies in their research. This article is framed within an HCI perspective and concludes by suggesting ways in which HCI reporting paradigms and methodologies could further research in this area.