Jessica K. Witt

Tool Use Affects Perceived Distance, But Only When You Intend to Use It

Recent research demonstrates neurologic and behavioral differences in peoples responses to the space that is within and beyond reach. The present studies demonstrated a perceptual difference as well. Reachability was manipulated by having participants reach with and without a tool. Across 2 conditions, in which participants either held a tool or not, targets were presented at the same distances. Perceived distances to targets within reach holding the tool were compressed compared with targets that were beyond reach without it. These results suggest that reachability serves as a metric for perception. The 3rd experiment found that reachability only influenced perceived distance when the perceiver intended to reach. These experiments suggest that the authors perceive the environment in terms of our intentions and abilities to act within it.

Perceiving distance: A role of effort and intent

Perceiving egocentric distance is not only a function of the optical variables to which it relates, but also a function of peoples current physiological potential to perform intended actions. In a set of experiments, we showed that, as the effort associated with walking increases, perceived distance increases if the perceiver intends to walk the extent, but not if the perceiver intends to throw. Conversely, as the effort associated with throwing increases, perceived distance increases if people intend to throw to the target, but not if they intend to walk. Perceiving distance combines the geometry of the world with our behavior goals and the potential of our body to achieve these goals.

Action’s Effect on Perception:

According to the action-specific perception account, people perceive the environment in terms of their ability to act in it. For example, softball players who are hitting better see the ball as bigger. Factors that affect ability and thus influence perception include body size, body control and coordination, energetic potential, and the challenges of the task. Acknowledging the influence of ability on perception challenges the traditional view that perception provides an objective, behaviorally independent representation of the environment. Instead, perception captures the mutual relationship between the environment and the perceiver’s abilities. Consequently, these effects are potentially adaptive for helping perceivers plan future actions based on their abilities.

Action-specific Influences on Distance Perception: A Role for Motor Simulation

Perception is influenced by the perceivers ability to perform intended actions. For example, when people intend to reach with a tool to targets that are just beyond arms reach, the targets look closer than when they intend to reach without the tool (J. K. Witt, D. R. Proffitt, & W. Epstein, 2005). This is one of several examples demonstrating that behavioral potential affects perception. However, the action-specific processes that are involved in relating the persons abilities to perception have yet to be explored. Four experiments are presented that implicate motor simulation as a mediator of these effects. When a perceiver intends to perform an action, the perceiver runs a motor simulation of that action. The perceivers ability to perform the action, as determined by the outcome of the simulation, influences perceived distance.

See the Ball, Hit the Ball Apparent Ball Size Is Correlated With Batting Average

Baseball players frequently say that the ball appears bigger when they are hitting well. In describing a mammoth 565-ft home run, Mickey Mantle said, ‘‘I never really could explain it. I just saw the ball as big as a grapefruit’’ (Early, n.d.). George Scott of the Boston Red Sox said, ‘‘When you’re hitting the ball [well], it comes at you looking like a grapefruit. When you’re not, it looks like a blackeyed pea’’ (Baseball Almanac, n.d.). During a slump, Joe ‘‘Ducky’’ Medwick of the St. Louis Cardinals said he felt like he was ‘‘swinging at aspirins’’ (Bradley, 2003). Similar comments have been made by such Hall of Famers as Ted Williams (Bicknell, 2000), ‘‘Wee’’ Willie Keeler (Bradley, 2003), George Brett (Langill, n.d.), and more. This phenomenon is not limited to baseball. When playing well, tennis players report that the ball looks huge, golfers say that the cup looks bigger, and basketball players say that the hoop looks enormous. All of these people report perceptions that are modulated by performance efficacy. Our experiment confirms that this phenomenon is a psychological reality.

Putting to a bigger hole : Golf performance relates to perceived size

When people are engaged in a skilled behavior, such as occurs in sports, their perceptions relate optical information to their performance. In the present research, we demonstrate the effects of performance on size perception in golfers. We found that golfers who played better judged the hole to be bigger than did golfers who did not play as well. In follow-up laboratory experiments, participants putted on a golf mat from a location near or far from the hole and then judged the size of the hole. Participants who putted from the near location perceived the hole to be bigger than did participants who putted from the far location. Our results demonstrate that perception is influenced by the perceiver’s current ability to act effectively in the environment.

From the Revolution to Embodiment: 25 Years of Cognitive Psychology.

In 1988, the cognitive revolution had become institutionalized: Cognition was the manipulation of abstract symbols by rules. But, much like institutionalized political parties, some of the ideas were becoming stale. Where was action? Where was the self? How could cognition be smoothly integrated with emotions, with social psychology, with development, with clinical analyses? Around that time, thinkers in linguistics, philosophy, artificial intelligence, biology, and psychology were formulating the idea that just as overt behavior depends on the specifics of the body in action, so might cognition depend on the body. Here we characterize (some would say caricature) the strengths and weaknesses of cognitive psychology of that era, and then we describe what has come to be called embodied cognition: how cognition arises through the dynamic interplay of brain controlling bodily action controlling perception, which changes the brain. We focus on the importance of action and how action shapes perception, the self, and language. Having the body in action as a central consideration for theories of cognition promises, we believe, to help unify psychology.

Kicking to bigger uprights: field goal kicking performance influences perceived size.

Perception relates not only to the optical information from the environment but also to the perceivers performance on a given task. We present evidence that the perceived height and width of an American-football field goal post relates to the perceivers kicking performance. Participants who made more successful kicks perceived the field goal posts to be farther apart and perceived the crossbar to be closer to the ground compared with participants who made fewer kicks. Interestingly, the current results show perceptual effects related to performance only after kicking the football but not before kicking. We also found that the types of performance errors influenced specific aspects of perception. The more kicks that were missed left or right of the target, the narrower the field goal posts looked. The more kicks that were missed short of the target, the taller the field goal crossbar looked. These results demonstrate that performance is a factor in size perception.

The World Within Reach: Effects of Hand Posture and Tool Use on Visual Cognition

Our mental processing of the visual world is not independent of our physical actions within it. Placing objects near one’s hands and interacting with objects using tools can enhance visual perception, bias and prolong the allocation of attention, and distort memory in systematic ways. This suggests that the world within our reach is cognitively different from the world beyond reach. In this review, we examine the evidence supporting this conclusion, focusing on the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie these effects, the parameters that may control their emergence, and their potential practical applications.

A Functional Role for Motor Simulation in Identifying Tools

Embodied cognition promotes the involvement of the motor system in cognitive processing, such as tool identification. Although neuropsychological studies suggest that the motor system is not necessary for identifying tools, it may still have a functional role in tool recognition. To test this possibility, we used a motor interference task: Participants squeezed a rubber ball in one hand while naming pictures of tools and animals. Participants were faster and more accurate in naming the tools that were oriented with the handle facing away from the squeezing hand than in naming the tools that were oriented with the handle facing toward the squeezing hand. There was no effect of orientation for animals. Given that participants simulate grasping a tool with the hand closest to the handle, this result demonstrates that interfering with the ability to simulate grasping impairs tool naming and suggests that motor simulation has a functional role in tool identification.