Biofunctional Understanding and Judgment of Size

Abstract

Research has shown that the meaningfulness of the material increases judged size, whereas symmetry decreases size judgments. These findings have been interpreted in terms of information processing, with a greater quantity of information leading to a judgment of larger size. An alternative view based on biofunctional understanding theory emphasizes the quality of affordance-triggered biological activity as reported and observed in attitudes toward playing sports, effortless understanding, knowledge-in-action, meditative wisdom, and body–mind cycle of adaptation. This alternative implies that affordance biofunctional activity is naturally size-diminishinging as it moves toward coherence and size-expanding as it moves away from coherence influencing judgments of size accordingly. Here we tested this hypothesis in the realm of sensorimotor integration. Our first experiment showed that phonologically unpronounced or symmetric symbols elicit smaller size judgments than phonologically pronounced and asymmetric symbols. Next, we manipulated the quantity of meaning with the affordance (possibilities for biofunctional activity) orthogonally in a second experiment; results indicated that meaning affects size judgments only in the absence of phonological information. We conclude that the biofunctional activity affordance may be responsible for observed differences in size judgment.

The open-object illusion: size perception is greatly influenced by object boundaries

“…The open-object illusion is a unique phenomenon in its magnitude, robustness and extent. It can be distinguished from other size perception effects caused by symmetry, meaning, or pronounceability, which tend to be more limited (Jin, Lee, & Yuan, 2016;New, Doré-Mazars, Cavézian, Pallier, & Barra, 2016;Reber, et al, 2014;Reber, Wurtz, Knapstad, & Lervik, 2010). In contrast, the open-object illusion is consistent with Saarinen and Levi's (1999) study showing that shape perception is more accurate for closed contour stimuli than for open contour stimuli.…”

Gih (Qi): Beyond Affordance

“…Third, Gih helps coordinate the human and the environment. According to this discussion and as elaborated by Lee et al (2007) and Lee and Shaw (unpublished), the concept of Gih is comparable with but more advanced than the concept of affordance developed by ecological approaches (see Jin and Lee, 2013 ; Jin et al, 2015 ; Jin et al, 2016 , for further suggestions).…”

Biofunctional Understanding and Conceptual Control: Searching for Systematic Consensus in Systemic Cohesion

“…As reviewed in the introduction, a growing literature now embraces the theory that the physical biology is a diverse—color-coded, so to speak—source of special systemic functions ( Iran-Nejad, 1980/1987 ). Among these are the special systemic sources that support the embodied-mind functions ( Iran-Nejad and Ortony, 1984 ; Iran-Nejad and Gregg, 2011 ; Borghi et al, 2013 ; Alverson, 2015 ; Jin et al, 2015 , 2016 ; Scorolli and Borghi, 2015 ; Caligiore et al, 2016 ; Thill and Twomey, 2016 ). Chief among these functions are those having to do with the newly discovered idea that physical biology is the direct and immediate source of the hitherto-neglected wisdom of the intellectual capacity of biofunctional understanding that is the principle contributor to the systemic spiral of biofunctional understanding.…”

“…The transition era provided scarce ground for the kind of evidence, theory, and methodology about biofunctional understanding that is available worldwide today (e.g., Iran-Nejad, 2000 ; Ziemke et al, 2004 ; Borghi et al, 2013 ; Ghorbani et al, 2014 ; Alverson, 2015 ; Jin et al, 2015 , 2016 ; Johnson, 2015 ; Billing et al, 2016 ; Caligiore et al, 2016 ; Soylu, 2016 ; Thill and Twomey, 2016 ). Therefore, early biofunctional theorizing had to scrape for embodiment one metaphor at a time, just as one had to struggle breathlessly against the downhill current of prestigious metaphysical cognitive psychology ( Iran-Nejad, 1980/1987 ; Iran-Nejad and Irannejad, 2017b ).…”