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Action induction due to visual perception of linear motion in depth

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Abstract

Visually perceived motion can affect observers’ motor control in such a way that an intended action can be activated automatically when it contains similar spatial features. So far, effects have been mostly demonstrated with simple displays where objects were moving in a two-dimensional plane. However, almost all actions we perform and visually perceive in everyday life are much more complex and take place in three-dimensional space. The purpose of this study was to examine action inductions due to visual perception of motion in depth. Therefore, we conducted two Simon experiments where subjects were presented with video displays of a sphere (simple displays, experiment 1) and a real person (complex displays, experiment 2) moving in depth. In both experiments, motion direction towards and away from the observer served as task irrelevant information whereas a color change in the video served as relevant information to choose the correct response (close or far positioned response key). The results show that subjects reacted faster when motion direction of the dynamic stimulus was corresponding to the spatial position of the demanded response. In conclusion, this direction-based Simon effect is modulated by spatial position information, higher sensitivity of our visual system for looming objects, and a high salience of objects being on a collision course.

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Notes

  1. Colors were chosen for the same reasons as described in Classen and Kibele (2015).

  2. With this experimental condition we wanted to examine a small question alongside that is not of further interest for the main hypotheses of our study. For this reason we will outline the results of this condition but will subsequently not address it any further.

  3. Note: all participants used their right index finger to press the proximal key and their left index finger to press the distal key. To rule out impacts of handedness in this experiment, we replicated experiment 1 with changed index finger to response key mapping (n = 5). The results were similar and allowed us to assume that handedness is no factor of influence here.

  4. One might argue that the stimulus is becoming smaller from the close to the far position and that a size effect is responsible for the different magnitudes of the Simon effects. It is well known that stimulus size affects simple reaction time in such a way that reaction times are shorter to larger as to smaller stimuli. Nevertheless, this only holds for stimuli smaller than 0.5° (e.g. Froeberg, 1907; O’Donell, Barraza, & Colombo, 2010). The stimulus size at the far position corresponds to a visual angle of 1.2° (with a viewing distance of 70 cm). Therefore, reaction times should not be affected by stimulus size here.

  5. In an experiment of our own conducted in our lab, we tested choice reaction times with different colors on different backgrounds and found that there was no difference between the color magenta (RGB 255, 0, 255) and green (RGB 0, 255, 0) on a gray background (RGB 128, 128, 128) (Hofmann, 2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Sports and Sport Science, University of Kassel, Damaschkestraße 25, 34121, Kassel, Germany

    Claudia Classen & Armin Kibele

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  1. Claudia Classen
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  2. Armin Kibele
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Correspondence to Claudia Classen.

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All experiments of this study have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. All participants gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.

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Classen, C., Kibele, A. Action induction due to visual perception of linear motion in depth. Psychological Research 81, 131–142 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-015-0724-3

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