Memory for target height is scaled to observer height

Abstract

According to the embodied approach to visual perception, individuals scale the environment to their bodies. This approach highlights the central role of the body for immediate, situated action. The present experiments addressed whether body scaling-specifically, eyeheight scaling-occurs in memory when action is not immediate. Participants viewed standard targets that were either the same height as, taller than, or shorter than themselves. Participants then viewed a comparison target and judged whether the comparison was taller or shorter than the standard target. Participants were most accurate when the standard target height matched their own heights, taking into account postural changes. Participants were biased to underestimate standard target height, in general, and to push standard target height away from their own heights. These results are consistent with the literature on eye-height scaling in visual perception and suggest that body scaling is not only a useful metric for perception and action, but is also preserved in memory.

Visual near space is scaled to parameters of current action plans.

“…In studies investigating tool-use in contrast, the scale of “reaching ability” is typically assumed (e.g., Witt, 2011a). Related scales are “action potential” (e.g., Witt et al, 2008) or “joint size” (Linkenauger, Witt, & Proffitt, 2011), and “eye-height” (Twedt, Crawford, & Proffitt, 2012). What is common to all these concepts, however, is that certain aspects of the perceiver’s body affect perception to the extent that this body is engaged in real, anticipated, or simulated interaction with the environment (cf.…”

Eyewitness Memory for Person Identification: Predicting Mugbook Recognition Accuracy According to Person Description Abilities and Subjective Confidence of Witnesses

“…If the witness estimates the culprit to be in his/her age group, accuracy in statements is more probable and the attributes can be given more attention. Second, for height estimates, people tend to use eye height scaling (Twedt et al, 2012), meaning that persons showed better accuracy in height estimates when the height of the culprit was not much different from the eye-height of the participant (Twedt et al, 2015). This means that if the eye-height of the witness during the crime was about the same height as the culprit during the crime, a smaller margin of error can be chosen when height estimates are analyzed.…”

“…This means that if the eye-height of the witness during the crime was about the same height as the culprit during the crime, a smaller margin of error can be chosen when height estimates are analyzed. Also, height estimations seem more accurate if they are done in the same body position as at the time of encoding the height (Twedt et al, 2012). The results of Twedt and colleagues also show that ideally a matching approach (presentation of the pictures are limited to those that match the description) is only used if really necessary; it seems overall better to use a sequencing approach (pictures are sorted that pictures which better match the description are presented earlier) for as many attributes as possible.…”

“…For example, the witness's height estimation might be influenced by the participants' own knowledge or assumptions of the average population norm (Meissner et al, 2007). Furthermore, body scaling or eye height scaling is used to making estimations (Twedt et al, 2012(Twedt et al, , 2015, such that persons use their own eye-height to estimate these features in other persons. In our experiments, however, all participants were seated when they viewed the culprit, which did not allow them to use their own eye height to estimate the height of the culprit.…”

Visual and postural eye-height information is flexibly coupled in the perception of virtual environments.

“…Previous studies have shown that manipulations of visual eye-height relative to postural eye-height affect perceived egocentric distance (Leyrer et al, 2011; Leyrer et al, 2015a, 2015b; Messing & Durgin, 2005; Ooi et al, 2001; Sinai et al, 1998) and size (Bertamini et al, 1998; Dixon et al, 2000; Twedt et al, 2012; Warren & Whang, 1987; Wraga, 1999a, 1999b; Wraga & Proffitt, 2000) of objects in action space (2 m up to 30 m distance from the observer; Cutting & Vishton, 1995). Compared with a condition where visual eye-height matches postural eye-height, perceived object distance increased when visual eye-height was lower than postural eye-height, whereas perceived distance decreased when visual eye-height was higher than postural eye-height.…”