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Perception of affordances for standing on an inclined surface depends on height of center of mass

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Abstract

We investigated whether perception of affordances for standing on an inclined surface depended on the height of center of mass of the perceiver-actor. Participants adjusted the angle of inclination of a surface until they felt that it was just barely possible for them to stand on that surface. They performed this task while wearing a backpack apparatus to which masses were attached in one of three configurations—high-mass, low-mass, and no-mass. Moreover, participants performed this task by viewing the inclined surface or by probing it with a hand-held rod (while blindfolded). Perception of affordances for standing on the inclined surface reflected the changes in center of mass brought on by the weighted backpack apparatus (the perceptual boundary occurred at a smaller angle of inclination in the high-mass condition than in the low-mass condition and in the no-mass condition). Moreover, perception of this affordance reflected such changes both when the surface was viewed and when the surface was probed with a hand-held rod (while blindfolded). The results highlight that perception of affordances is dynamic and task-dependent and suggest that the stimulation patterns that support perception of affordances are invariant and modality-independent.

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Notes

  1. Anectodally, we can report that exploration of the inclined surface by means of remote haptic perception was quite variable and highly individualized. Participants explored the surface in a number of ways (tapping, rubbing, probing, scraping, poking) in a number of directions (side to side, up and down) using a variety of joint movements (wrist, elbow, shoulder). Although we did not record exploration time, we can anecdotally report that (a) exploration time varied, but for the most part, bouts of exploration were relatively short (just as few seconds), (b) participants tended to explore for longer periods of time when probing slopes near the perceptual boundary, and (c) participants tended to explore for longer periods of time when probing the surface than when viewing the surface (Fitzpatrick et al. 1994).

  2. The variability of perceptual responses across the four trials in a given condition was quite small. Across participants and conditions, the standard deviation of the four perceptual reports ranged from 2.3° to 9.6°. On average the standard deviation of the four trials in a given condition was 3.5°.

  3. The lack of difference between perceptual and behavioral boundaries (when participants were not wearing a backpack) may seem inconsistent with Bhalla and Proffitt’s (1999) finding that participants overestimate the inclination of hills (regardless of whether they are wearing a weighted backpack). However, it is important to point out that such overestimations were (verbal) estimates of the angle of inclination, not (yes or no) reports of whether the surface afforded standing on (as in the current experiment).

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by an Illinois State University Summer Faculty Fellowship awarded to J.B.W. We thank Eric Malek for his help with data collection and Dawn McBride for helpful discussion. We thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a previous draft of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Illinois State University, Campus Box 4620, Normal, IL, 61790-4620, USA

    Tony Regia-Corte & Jeffrey B. Wagman

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  1. Tony Regia-Corte
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  2. Jeffrey B. Wagman
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Correspondence to Jeffrey B. Wagman.

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Regia-Corte, T., Wagman, J.B. Perception of affordances for standing on an inclined surface depends on height of center of mass. Exp Brain Res 191, 25–35 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-008-1492-8

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