Abstract: A method for measuring the type of motion and configuration of objects by observation of the objects and evaluation of the observation results, including the steps of: producing data representative of an image of the objects in a selected plane at successive time intervals; deriving, from the data, for each time interval, a representation of only one pair of coordinate values in the plane for each object; producing, from the coordinate values, representations of motion paths for the objects during a plurality of the time intervals; and producing, from the motion path representations, representations of the path traversed by each object, and the average local position, the period of dwell and number of reversals of direction of motion of each object during the plurality of time intervals.