Abstract
Experiments were conducted on length resolution for objects held between the thumb and forefinger. The just noticeable difference in length measured in discrimination experiments is roughly 1 mm for reference lengths of 10 to 20 mm. It increases monotonically with reference length but violates Weber’s law. Also, it decreases when the subject is permittedto maintain a constant finger span between trials; however, it tends to increase when the nondominant hand is used. As would be expected from studies of other stimulus dimensions in other sense modalities, resolution is considerably poorer in identification experiments than in discrimination experiments. For stimulus sets that cover a broad range (90 mm), the total information transfer is roughly 2 bits; for those that cover a relatively small range (18 mm), it is roughly 1 bit. The data are analyzed and interpreted using analysis techniques and models that have been used previously in studies of audition (e.g., Durlach &Braida, 1969).
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This work was supported by NSF Grants DMC 83-52460 and BNS 84-17817, NIH Grant 5 ROI NS 14092, and ONR Grant N00014-88-K0338.
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Durlach, N.I., Delhorne, L.A., Wong, A. et al. Manual discrimination and identification of length by the finger-span method. Perception & Psychophysics 46, 29–38 (1989). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208071
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208071