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Action induction by visual perception of rotational motion

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Abstract

A basic process in the planning of everyday actions involves the integration of visually perceived movement characteristics. Such processes of information integration often occur automatically. The aim of the present study was to examine whether the visual perception of spatial characteristics of a rotational motion (rotation direction) can induce a spatially compatible action. Four reaction time experiments were conducted to analyze the effect of perceiving task irrelevant rotational motions of simple geometric figures as well as of gymnasts on a horizontal bar while responding to color changes in these objects. The results show that the participants react faster when the directional information of a rotational motion is compatible with the spatial characteristics of an intended action. The degree of complexity of the perceived event does not play a role in this effect. The spatial features of the used biological motion were salient enough to elicit a motion based Simon effect. However, in the cognitive processing of the visual stimulus, the critical criterion is not the direction of rotation, but rather the relative direction of motion (direction of motion above or below the center of rotation). Nevertheless, this conclusion is tainted with reservations since it is only fully supported by the response behavior of female participants.

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Notes

  1. Different colors have different effects on human behavior which is an object of interest in color psychology. There exist findings about wavelength effects on simple reaction time (e.g. Weingarten, 1972; Jones & Wilkinson, 1975; Nissen & Pokorny, 1977). 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 red (RGB 255, 0, 0) and blue (RGB 51, 56, 255) on a grey background (RGB 128, 128, 128) (Hofmann, 2012).

  2. In the subsequent experiments of this study (except for Experiment 1b because of the undersized sample) we look for sex differences in the statistical analysis, but will not directly address this issue, because this side effect does not belong to the general purpose of the study.

  3. Both participants wore contact lenses.

  4. Participants made on average 1.3 fixations per trial.

  5. Pillai‘s trace.

  6. Mean difference corresponds to a viewing angle of 0.09° which is smaller than the eye tracking system’s accuracy. We assume that measurement error to be random, so that the mathematical expectation approximates zero with increasing measures. This must be taken into account for the interpretation of this result.

  7. We used only two SOA intervals here because we obtained the largest and most consistent dorbSEs with these intervals in the previous experiments (see Table 1).

  8. A t test showed both dorbSE’s to be significant: lower half, t(9) = 2.64, p = 0.03; upper half, t(9) = 2.28, p = 0.05.

  9. The SOAs of 200 and 400 ms were adequate intervals to elicit an action selection conflict in the previous experiments. Here we surrogated the 200 ms interval by a 600 ms interval due to the higher complexity of the stimulus in Experiment 2.

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  1. Institute of 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 by visual perception of rotational motion. Psychological Research 80, 785–804 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-015-0693-6

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