Action Effects on Visual Perception of Distances: A Multilevel Bayesian Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Some studies suggested that action constraints influence visual perception of distances. For instance, the greater the effort to cover a distance, the longer people perceive this distance.The present multilevel Bayesian meta-analysis supports the existence of a small action constraint effect on distance estimation, Hedge's g = 0.29, 95% CrI [0.16, 0.47] (Nstudies = 37, Nparticipants = 1035). This effect slightly varied according to the action constraint category (i.e., effort, weight, and tool-use) but not according to participants' motor intention. Some authors argued such effects reflect experimental demand biases rather than genuine perceptual effects. Our meta-analysis did not allow to dismiss this possibility, but it did not support it.We provide field-specific conventions for interpreting action constraint effect sizes and minimum sample size to detect them with various levels of power. We encourage researchers to update this meta-analysis using our online repository (https://osf.io/bc3wn/) to send their published or unpublished data.

Phenomenological control: response to imaginative suggestion predicts measures of mirror touch synaesthesia, vicarious pain and the rubber hand illusion

“…Each time the average phenomenological control ability is sufficiently high, an effect would be found, but when it is not, no effect would be found. This situation parallels that in evidence for topdown effects in psychology experiments (for example in the variability across studies of the effects of action constraints (such as wearing a heavy backpack) on distance perception; for a meta-analysis see Molto, Nalborczyk, Palluel-Germain & Morgado, 2019). It is possible therefore that phenomenological control may be a hidden moderator driving variable results in psychology experiments and contributing to the ongoing 'replication crisis' (Chambers, RUNNING HEAD: PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONTROL 2019).…”