Enlargement of Perceived Target Size: Intentional or Natural?

Abstract

This study used a soccer context to examine the relations between scores and judgments of goal sizes. In Experiment 1, 18 participants (4 women, 14 men; M age = 21.9 yr., SD = 0.9) kicked balls into 5 goals of different sizes. Participants' estimates of the goal size correlated positively with their scores. In Experiment 2, 17 participants (3 women, 14 men; M age = 22.1 yr., SD = 1.0) kicked the balls either from a standing position or while running. Participants' estimates of the goal sizes were higher when they were running. The enlargement of perceived goal size was seemingly related to scoring, and was scaled by the running action. Experiments reinforced the notion of affordance-based control. Differing views from Oriental philosophy and psychology were discussed.

Control your mind, make affordance available

“…In affordances, the manner in which one uses his or her body to interact with the environment affects his or her perception of the environment. A later study supplemented findings by Jin and Lee (2013) and reinforced the notion of affordance-based control. On these grounds, the action-specific approach not only provides robust evidence for the account of affordances but also suggests that perception is mediated by internal processes by demonstrating a new ontology for the behavioral sciences based on biologically relevant affordances rather than physical objects ( Jin and Lee, 2013 ; also see Turvey, 1992 ; Miller, 2007 ).…”

“…Post-Gibson researchers have also advocated the notion that affordances are dispositional symbols of physical objects that necessarily actualize related actions under appropriate circumstances (e.g., Caiani, 2014 ). The concept of survival is similar to that of Chi energy (are also known as Kih paradigm) in oriental philosophy ( Lee et al, 2007 ; Jin and Lee, 2013 ), which defines affordance-control ability. Since ecological account showed direct perception and denied the need for any internal processing of biologically relevant cues to perceive meaningful affordances, it seemed to offer nothing to the analytically oriented cognitive science (e.g., Ullman, 1981 ).…”

“…Based on studies by Fajen (2007) , Fajen et al (2009) , Lee et al (2012) , and Jin and Lee (2013) , putting is an example of affordance-based control. For blind persons, the shots’ weights varied with the forms of touching, holding, weighing, and putting.…”

“…The participants were paid 50 Chinese yuan (CNY) as compensation. Because the sample size was similar to the study by Lee and colleagues ( Lee et al, 2012 ; Jin and Lee, 2013 ) and smaller than the study by Witt and colleagues ( Witt and Proffitt, 2005 ; Witt et al, 2008 ), for a direct comparison, we report rank-order correlation coefficients (see results below).…”

Biofunctional Understanding and Judgment of Size

“…In other words, the object is perceived in terms of the possibility for action—so called “perception through action” ( Turvey and Kugler, 1984 ; Witt and Proffitt, 2005 ). Based on the assumption that judgments of physical size are good proxies for perceived size, a growing number of studies have found that individuals perceive objects not only through bodily actions but also by controlling affordance before the action (e.g., Jin and Lee, 2013 ). For example, a creek affords the action of jumping and vision changes with the progress of the action.…”