Abstract
Behavior is typically organized in terms of a goal one intends to achieve rather than in terms of the anatomical components used in doing so. Similarly, perceptual behavior is typically organized in terms of a property one intends to perceive rather than in terms of the anatomical components used in doing so. Such task-specificity and anatomical independence are manifest in perception of properties of wielded objects. We investigated whether these properties are also manifest in perception of properties by means of wielded objects. Blindfolded participants explored an inclined surface with a rod attached to their preferred or non-preferred foot and reported whether they would be able to stand on that surface. Perception reflected action capabilities, but was unaffected by foot used, highlighting the haptic system as a smart perceptual device.
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Notes
Previous research (Burton 2000) has shown that hearing the contact between a hand-held dowel and the support surface is neither necessary nor sufficient for perceiving affordances of that surface.
Power analyses were conducted for these nonsignificant tests using the G*Power program (Faul et al. 2007). Effect sizes were estimated using significant main effects or interactions reported by Wagman and Hajnal (in preparation). As in the current experiment, these authors investigated perception of affordances for standing on an inclined surface when that surface is explored with a rod wielded by different (configurations of) anatomical components and used the same set of dependent measures. For all tests, Cohen’s f was estimated to be between .37 and .58 (a “large” effect size, see Keppel and Wickens 2004). Using this effect size, G*Power estimated power for the nonsignificant tests reported here to be between .92 and .99.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Dan Jackson for help with data collection, Brian Day for serving as the model in the figure, and Dawn McBride for help with data analysis. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on a previous draft of this manuscript. Portions of the data were presented at the Seventeenth International Conference on Perception and Action (July 2013, Estoril, Portugal) and the 53rd Meeting the Psychonomic Society (November 2013, Toronto, Canada).
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Wagman, J.B., Hajnal, A. Getting off on the right (or left) foot: perceiving by means of a rod attached to the preferred or non-preferred foot. Exp Brain Res 232, 3591–3599 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4047-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4047-1