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Consciousness and Cognition Jan 2020Previous work revealed that humans can keep track of the direction and degree of errors in their temporal and numerical reproductions/estimations. Given the behavioral...
Previous work revealed that humans can keep track of the direction and degree of errors in their temporal and numerical reproductions/estimations. Given the behavioral and psychophysical commonalities to various magnitudes and the implication of an overlapping neuroanatomical locus for their representation, we hypothesized that participants would capture the direction of errors and confidence ratings would track the magnitude of errors in line-length reproductions. In two experiments, participants reproduced various target lengths as accurately as possible, and reported the direction of their errors and provided confidence ratings for their reproductions. The isolated analysis of these two second-order judgments showed that participants can correctly report the direction of errors in their line-length reproductions and subjective confidence decreases as the magnitude of errors increases. These results show that humans can robustly keep track of the direction of errors in their line-length reproductions and their subjective confidence corroborates the magnitude of these errors.
Topics: Adult; Executive Function; Humans; Mathematical Concepts; Metacognition; Size Perception; Space Perception; Visual Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 31698181
DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2019.102831 -
Journal of Vision 2003Animals as well as humans adjust their gait patterns in order to minimize energy required for their locomotion. A particularly important factor is the constant force of...
Animals as well as humans adjust their gait patterns in order to minimize energy required for their locomotion. A particularly important factor is the constant force of earth's gravity. In many dynamic systems, gravity defines a relation between temporal and spatial parameters. The stride frequency of an animal that moves efficiently in terms of energy consumption depends on its size. In two psychophysical experiments, we investigated whether human observers can employ this relation in order to retrieve size information from point-light displays of dogs moving with varying stride frequencies across the screen. In Experiment 1, observers had to adjust the apparent size of a walking point-light dog by placing it at different depths in a three-dimensional depiction of a complex landscape. In Experiment 2, the size of the dog could be adjusted directly. Results show that displays with high stride frequencies are perceived to be smaller than displays with low stride frequencies and that this correlation perfectly reflects the predicted inverse quadratic relation between stride frequency and size. We conclude that biological motion can serve as a cue to retrieve the size of an animal and, therefore, to scale the visual environment.
Topics: Adult; Animals; Animals, Domestic; Computer Simulation; Cues; Dogs; Female; Gait; Humans; Locomotion; Male; Motion Perception; Size Perception
PubMed: 12803534
DOI: 10.1167/3.4.1 -
Cognition Oct 2013The present work examined the influence of conceptual object size on numerical processing. In two experiments, pictures of conceptually large or small animals of equal...
The present work examined the influence of conceptual object size on numerical processing. In two experiments, pictures of conceptually large or small animals of equal retinal size served as prime stimuli appearing before numerically big or small integer targets. Participants were instructed to perform an unbiased parity judgment task on the target integers. When the prime's conceptual size was congruent with the target's numerical value, participants' reaction time was faster than when the two were incongruent with each other. This influence of conceptual object size on numerical value perception suggests that both types of magnitudes share similar mental representations. Our results are in accord with recent theories (e.g., Cantlon, Platt, & Brannon, 2009; Henik, Leibovich, Naparstek, Diesendruck, & Rubinsten, 2012) that emphasize the evolutionary importance of evaluation and perception of sizes to the development of the numerical system.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Judgment; Mathematical Concepts; Size Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 23811178
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.06.001 -
PloS One 2011It has long been suspected that touch plays a fundamental role in the calibration of visual perception, and much recent evidence supports this idea. However, as the...
It has long been suspected that touch plays a fundamental role in the calibration of visual perception, and much recent evidence supports this idea. However, as the haptic exploration workspace is limited by the kinematics of the body, the contribution of haptic information to the calibration process should occur only within the region of the haptic workspace reachable by a limb (peripersonal space). To test this hypothesis we evaluated visual size perception and showed that it is indeed more accurate inside the peripersonal space. We then show that allowing subjects to touch the (unseen) stimulus after observation restores accurate size perception; the accuracy persists for some time, implying that calibration has occurred. Finally, we show that observing an actor grasp the object also produces accurate (and lasting) size perception, suggesting that the calibration can also occur indirectly by observing goal-directed actions, implicating the involvement of the "mirror system".
Topics: Adult; Calibration; Female; Humans; Judgment; Male; Size Perception; Touch; Visual Perception
PubMed: 22022420
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0025599 -
Journal of Vision Jul 2020Systematic shortening or lengthening of target objects during saccades modifies saccade amplitudes and perceived size of the objects. These two events are concomitant...
Systematic shortening or lengthening of target objects during saccades modifies saccade amplitudes and perceived size of the objects. These two events are concomitant when size change during the saccade occurs asymmetrically, thereby shifting the center of mass of the object. In the present study, we asked whether or not the two are necessarily linked. We tested human participants in symmetrical systematic shortening and lengthening of a vertical bar during a horizontal saccade, aiming to not modify the saccade amplitude. Before and after a phase of trans-saccadic changes of the target bar, participants manually indicated the sizes of various vertically oriented bars by open-loop grip aperture. We evaluated the effect of trans-saccadic changes of bar length on manual perceptual reports and whether this change depended on saccade amplitude. As expected, we did not induce any change in horizontal or vertical components of saccade amplitude, but we found a significant difference in perceived size after the lengthening experiment compared to after the shortening experiment. Moreover, after the lengthening experiment, perceived size differed significantly from pre-lengthening baseline. These findings suggest that a change of size perception can be induced trans-saccadically, and its mechanism does not depend on saccadic amplitude change.
Topics: Adaptation, Ocular; Adult; Female; Humans; Male; Photic Stimulation; Saccades; Size Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 32692824
DOI: 10.1167/jov.20.7.19 -
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 1966
Topics: Humans; Judgment; Size Perception
PubMed: 5946234
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1966.tb01344.x -
Perception 2012In baseball batting, golf putting, and dart throwing, successful players estimate the size of the target object to be bigger than their less successful counterparts....
In baseball batting, golf putting, and dart throwing, successful players estimate the size of the target object to be bigger than their less successful counterparts. While more and more empirical evidence is accumulated supporting the existence of this intriguing phenomenon, an explanation of the processes underpinning this effect remains to be provided. Here, we re-analysed data from a dart throwing experiment to examine the proposal--recently put forward by Proffitt and Linkenauger (in press)--that the variability in target-related performance may serve as a scaling metric for perceived target size which may explain why actors who perform consistently close to the target perceive the target to be bigger. Our results confirm that less variability in target-related performance in darts relates to perceiving the target as being bigger, thereby providing initial support for Proffitt and Linkenauger's proposal.
Topics: Anxiety; Humans; Psychomotor Performance; Size Perception; Sports
PubMed: 22808587
DOI: 10.1068/p7255 -
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics Jul 2019Perception of exteroceptive properties (e.g., object length) by effortful or dynamic touch is both task-specific and anatomically independent. We investigate whether...
Perception of exteroceptive properties (e.g., object length) by effortful or dynamic touch is both task-specific and anatomically independent. We investigate whether task-specificity and anatomical independence generalize to perception of proexteroceptive properties of the person-object system (i.e., relative position of the body on a wielded object). Moreover, we do so when objects are wielded by a body part that is unlikely to be well practiced in such tasks-the head. Experiment 1 found that participants can perceive the relative location of the head on a wielded object and that such perception is likely supported by task-specific sensitivity to an invariant mechanical stimulation pattern-rotational inertia. Experiment 2 found that participants have at least some ability to differentiate between this property and a related exteroceptive property (i.e., partial length of a wielded object extending to one side of the head). The results are discussed in terms of information for perception by effortful touch and a description of the haptic system as a biotensegrity structure.
Topics: Adult; Female; Head; Humans; Male; Photic Stimulation; Size Perception; Task Performance and Analysis; Touch Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 30877572
DOI: 10.3758/s13414-019-01705-8 -
Proceedings. Biological Sciences Jul 1999To use the small horizontal disparities between images projected to the eyes for the recovery of three-dimensional information, our visual system must first identify...
To use the small horizontal disparities between images projected to the eyes for the recovery of three-dimensional information, our visual system must first identify which feature in one eye's image corresponds with which in the other. The earliest level of disparity processing in primates (V1) contains cells that are spatial-frequency tuned. If such cells have a disparity range that covers only a single period of their mean tuning frequency, there will always be exactly one potential match within this range. Here, this 'size-disparity' hypothesis was tested by measuring the contrast sensitivity of stereopsis as a function of disparity for single bandpass-filtered items. It was found that thresholds were low and relatively constant up to disparities an order of magnitude larger than is predicted by this constraint. Furthermore, peak sensitivity was relatively independent of spatial frequency. A control experiment showed that binocular correlation of the carrier is necessary for this task. In a third experiment, the maximum disparity that supports threshold performance was compared for an isolated bandpass item and bandpass-filtered noise. This limit was found to be five times larger for the isolated stimuli. In summary, these findings show that the initial stage of disparity detection is not limited by the size-disparity constraint. For stimuli with multiple false targets, however, processes subsequent to this stage reduce the disparity range over which the correspondence problem can be solved.
Topics: Depth Perception; Humans; Size Perception; Vision Disparity; Vision, Binocular
PubMed: 10445290
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.1999.0788 -
Acta Psychologica Jul 2018Perception is relational: object properties are perceived in comparison to the spatiotemporal context rather than absolutely. This principle predicts well known contrast...
Perception is relational: object properties are perceived in comparison to the spatiotemporal context rather than absolutely. This principle predicts well known contrast effects: For instance, the same sphere will feel smaller after feeling a larger sphere and larger after feeling a smaller sphere (the Uznadze effect). In a series of experiments, we used a visual version of the Uznadze effect to test whether such contrast effects can be modulated by organizational factors, such as the similarity between the contrasting inducer stimulus and the contrasted induced stimulus. We report that this is indeed the case: size contrast is attenuated for inducer-inducing pairs having different 3D shapes, orientations, and even - surprisingly - color and lightness, in comparison to equivalent conditions where these features are the same. These findings complement related work in revealing basic mechanisms for fine-tuning local interactions in space-time in accord to the global stimulus context.
Topics: Female; Humans; Male; Orientation; Psychological Theory; Size Perception; Visual Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 29913314
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.06.002