Perceiving geographical slant
TL;DR: It is proposed that the perceived exaggeration of geographical slant preserves the relationship between distal inclination and people’s behavioral potential, thereby enhancing sensitivity to the small inclines that must actually be traversed in everyday experience.
Abstract: People judged the inclination of hills viewed either out-of-doors or in a computer-simulated virtual environment Angle judgments were obtained by having people (1) provide verbal estimates, (2) adjust a representation of the hill’s cross-section, and (3) adjust a tilt board with their unseen hand Geographical slant was greatly overestimated according to the first two measures, but not the third Apparent slant judgments conformed to ratio scales, thereby enhancing sensitivity to the small inclines that must actually be traversed in everyday experience It is proposed that the perceived exaggeration of geographical slant preserves the relationship between distal inclination and people’s behavioral potential Hills are harder to traverse as people become tired; hence, apparent slant increased with fatigue Visually guided actions must be accommodated to the actual distal properties of the environment; consequently, the tilt board adjustments did not reflect apparent slant overestimations, nor were they influenced by fatigue Consistent with the fact that steep hills are more difficult to descend than to ascend, these hills appeared steeper when viewed from the top
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TL;DR: Proprioceptive senses, particularly of limb position and movement, deteriorate with age and are associated with an increased risk of falls in the elderly and the more recent information available on proprioception has given a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying these senses.
Abstract: This is a review of the proprioceptive senses generated as a result of our own actions. They include the senses of position and movement of our limbs and trunk, the sense of effort, the sense of force, and the sense of heaviness. Receptors involved in proprioception are located in skin, muscles, and joints. Information about limb position and movement is not generated by individual receptors, but by populations of afferents. Afferent signals generated during a movement are processed to code for endpoint position of a limb. The afferent input is referred to a central body map to determine the location of the limbs in space. Experimental phantom limbs, produced by blocking peripheral nerves, have shown that motor areas in the brain are able to generate conscious sensations of limb displacement and movement in the absence of any sensory input. In the normal limb tendon organs and possibly also muscle spindles contribute to the senses of force and heaviness. Exercise can disturb proprioception, and this has implications for musculoskeletal injuries. Proprioceptive senses, particularly of limb position and movement, deteriorate with age and are associated with an increased risk of falls in the elderly. The more recent information available on proprioception has given a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying these senses as well as providing new insight into a range of clinical conditions.
1,280 citations
Cites background from "Perceiving geographical slant"
...Judgement of the slope is influenced by the subject’s level of fatigue and whether or not they are wearing a heavy backpack (298)....
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TL;DR: Perception informs people about the opportunities for action and their associated costs, and explicit awareness of spatial layout varies not only with relevant optical and ocular-motor variables, but also as a function of the costs associated with performing intended actions.
Abstract: Perception informs people about the opportu- nities for action and their associated costs. To this end, explicit awareness of spatial layout varies not only with relevant optical and ocular-motor variables, but also as a function of the costs associated with performing intended actions. Although explicit awareness is mutable in this respect, visually guided actions directed at the immediate environment are not. When the metabolic costs associated with walking an extent increase—perhaps because one is wearing a heavy backpack—hills appear steeper and distances to targets appear greater. When one is standing on a high balcony, the apparent distance to the ground is correlated with one's fear of falling. Perceiving spatial layout combines the geometry of the world with behavioral goals and the costs associated with achieving these goals.
630 citations
Cites background or methods from "Perceiving geographical slant"
...In our initial studies of geographical-slant perception, we compared slant assessments made when participants viewed hills from their base looking up with assessments made when participants stood at the top and looked down (Proffitt et al., 1995)....
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...’’ Participants performed this task with high accuracy (Proffitt et al., 1995)....
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...Our first experiment exploring this idea manipulated anticipated effort by inducing fatigue in participants (Proffitt et al., 1995)....
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...Participants performed this task with high accuracy (Proffitt et al., 1995)....
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TL;DR: A discussion of the various devices needed to implement immersive virtual environments, including object manipulation and social interaction, and the benefits and drawbacks associated with virtual environment technology in comparison with more conventional ways of doing basic experimental research.
Abstract: Immersive virtual environment (IVE) technology has great promise as a tool for basic experimental research in psychology. IVE technology gives participants the experience of being surrounded by the computer-synthesized environment. We begin with a discussion of the various devices needed to implement immersive virtual environments, including object manipulation and social interaction. We review the benefits and drawbacks associated with virtual environment technology, in comparison with more conventional ways of doing basic experimental research. We then consider a variety of examples of research using IVE technology in the areas of perception, spatial cognition, and social interaction.
621 citations
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01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: This paper posits the usefulness of mental shifts of scale and perspective in thinking and communicating about spatial relations, and describes two experimental techniques for researching such cognitive activities.
Abstract: This paper posits the usefulness of mental shifts of scale and perspective in thinking and communicating about spatial relations, and describes two experimental techniques for researching such cognitive activities. The first example involves mentally expanding a hand-sized piece of entangled string, a knot, so that following a portion of the string into a crossing resembles the act of walking along a path and over a bridge. The second example involves transforming experience and conceptions of the large-scale environment to small-scale representations through the act of mapmaking, and then translating the map to depictions of street-level views. When used in the context of clinical research methodologies, these techniques can help to elicit multimodal expressions of conceived topological relationships and geographical detail, with particular attention to individual differences.
609 citations
TL;DR: Recalibration of the transformation relating awareness and actions was found to occur over long-term changes in physiological potential (fitness level, age, and health) but not with transitory changes (fatigue and load).
Abstract: In 4 experiments, it was shown that hills appear steeper to people who are encumbered by wearing a heavy backpack (Experiment 1), are fatigued (Experiment 2), are of low physical fitness (Experiment 3), or are elderly and/or in declining health (Experiment 4). Visually guided actions are unaffected by these manipulations of physiological potential. Although dissociable, the awareness and action systems were also shown to be interconnected. Recalibration of the transformation relating awareness and actions was found to occur over long-term changes in physiological potential (fitness level, age, and health) but not with transitory changes (fatigue and load). Findings are discussed in terms of a time-dependent coordination between the separate systems that control explicit visual awareness and visually guided action.
577 citations
Cites background or methods or result from "Perceiving geographical slant"
...First, conscious awareness of slant exhibits response compression, as is seen in most domains of magnitude estimation such as brightness judgments (Proffitt et al., 1995)....
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...In our previous studies, we asked people to provide motoric adjustments corresponding to sets of verbally given angles, called the angle judgment task (Proffitt et al., 1995)....
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...Calibrating the Connection Between the Two Visual Systems As described earlier, evidence for interconnection between the visual awareness and guidance systems is also seen in the internal consistency that is observed between conscious and motoric slant judgments (Proffitt et al., 1995)....
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...For example, in the Proffitt et al. (1995) study, fatigue was introduced by having people run for about an hour....
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...Previously, we showed that when people judged the inclination of hills after becoming fatigued, they overestimated slant much more than when they were not tired (Proffitt et al., 1995)....
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References
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01 Jan 1979TL;DR: The relationship between Stimulation and Stimulus Information for visual perception is discussed in detail in this article, where the authors also present experimental evidence for direct perception of motion in the world and movement of the self.
Abstract: Contents: Preface. Introduction. Part I: The Environment To Be Perceived.The Animal And The Environment. Medium, Substances, Surfaces. The Meaningful Environment. Part II: The Information For Visual Perception.The Relationship Between Stimulation And Stimulus Information. The Ambient Optic Array. Events And The Information For Perceiving Events. The Optical Information For Self-Perception. The Theory Of Affordances. Part III: Visual Perception.Experimental Evidence For Direct Perception: Persisting Layout. Experiments On The Perception Of Motion In The World And Movement Of The Self. The Discovery Of The Occluding Edge And Its Implications For Perception. Looking With The Head And Eyes. Locomotion And Manipulation. The Theory Of Information Pickup And Its Consequences. Part IV: Depiction.Pictures And Visual Awareness. Motion Pictures And Visual Awareness. Conclusion. Appendixes: The Principal Terms Used in Ecological Optics. The Concept of Invariants in Ecological Optics.
21,493 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that the ventral stream of projections from the striate cortex to the inferotemporal cortex plays the major role in the perceptual identification of objects, while the dorsal stream projecting from the stripping to the posterior parietal region mediates the required sensorimotor transformations for visually guided actions directed at such objects.
5,878 citations
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TL;DR: Visual systems of hamster brain, discussing relative visual localization and discrimination blindness produced by ablation of cortical or tectal areas is discussed.
Abstract: Visual systems of hamster brain, discussing relative visual localization and discrimination blindness produced by ablation of cortical or tectal areas
1,311 citations
"Perceiving geographical slant" refers background in this paper
...Modifying an earlier proposal by Schneider (1969), they suggested that the ventral system is primarily concerned with object identification, the "what" of perception, whereas the dorsal system supports the mechanisms responsible for spatial localization, the "where" of perception....
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TL;DR: Throughout the history of modern psychology, perception has been treated as though the perceiver were a passive recording instrument of rather complex design, much as did the old nerve-muscle psychophysiology fall short of explaining behavior in everyday life.
Abstract: Throughout the history of modern psychology, until very recent times, perception has been treated as though the perceiver were a passive recording instrument of rather complex design. One might, in most experiments, describe him in much the same graphical terms as one uses to describe the latest piece of recording apparatus obtainable from Stoelting or the American Optical Company. Such psychology, practiced as it were in vitro, has fallen short of clarifying the nature of perception in everyday life much as did the old nerve-muscle psychophysiology fall short of explaining behavior in everyday life. Both have been monumentally useful in their place. The names of Weber, Fechner, Wundt, Titchener, Hecht, and Crozier are safely ensconced in any respectable psychological hall of fame. But their work, like the work of the nerve-muscle men, is only a beginning.
1,055 citations
Additional excerpts
...BRUNER, J. S., & GOODMAN, C. C. (1947)....
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