The relation between size and apparent heaviness

Cross, David V.; Rotkin, Laurence

doi:10.3758/bf03204091

Cited by 91 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Stevens and Rubin (1970) and Cross and Rotkin (1975) suggested that perceived heaviness is dependent on object volume (i.e., percept-percept coupling), indicating perceptual dependence of touch perception on visual perception (Epstein, 1982). However, Amazeen (1999) and Riley and Turvey (2001) found that visual and touch influences were additive, suggesting perceptual independence (see also Grandy & Westwood, 2006).…”

Section: Methods Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rotational inertia and multimodal heaviness perception

Streit

Shockley

Riley

2007

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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Perceived heaviness of wielded objects has been shown to be a function of the objects' rotational inertia-the objects' resistance to rotational acceleration. Studies have also demonstrated that if virtual objects rotate faster than the actual wielded object (i.e., a rotational gain is applied to virtual object motion), the wielded object is perceived as systematically lighter. The present research determined whether combining those inertial and visual manipulations would influence heaviness perception in a manner consistent with an inertial model of multimodal heaviness perception. Rotational inertia and optical rotational gain of wielded objects were manipulated to specify inertia multimodally. Both visual and haptic manipulations significantly influenced perceived heaviness. The results suggest that rotational inertia is detected multimodally and that multimodal heaviness perception conforms to an inertial model.

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Section: Methods Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A classic illustration is the size-weight (S-W) illusion (see, e.g., Charpentier, 1891;Cross & Rotkin, 1975;Stevens & Rubin, 1970). When confronted with two objects of the same mass but different size, people typically report that the larger object is lighter than the smaller object.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rotational inertia and multimodal heaviness perception

Streit

Shockley

Riley

2007

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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“…I discuss the nature of this illusion briefly; a more detailed account is given in Jones's (1986) More recent studies of the size-weight illusion show that when the volume of an object remains constant, its heaviness increases as a power function of weight (Harper & Stevens, 1948) but that at different constant volumes, a family of power functions is required to describe the relation between weight and heaviness (Cross &Rotkin, 1975;Stevens&Rubin, 1970). Various mathematical expressions, ranging from logarithmic (Stevens & Rubin, 1970) to exponential decay functions (Rule & Curtis, 1977), have been proposed to describe the relation between heaviness and volume as a function of weight.…”

Section: Size-weight Illusionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motor illusions: What do they reveal about proprioception?

Jones

1988

Psychological Bulletin

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Five illusions involving distortions in the perception of limb position, movement, and weight are described in the context of their contribution to understanding the sensory processes involved in proprioception. In particular, these illusions demonstrate that the position sense representation of the body and the awareness of limb movement result from the cross-calibration of visual and proprioceptive signals. Studies of the vibration illusion and phantom-limb phenomenon indicate that the perception of limb movement and position are encoded independently and can be dissociated. Postural aftereffects and the illusions of movement induced by vibration highlight the remarkable lability of this sense of limb position, which is a necessary feature for congruence between the spatial senses. Finally, I discuss the role of corollary discharges in the central processing of afferent information with respect to the size-weight and vibration illusions.The study of visual illusions has provided many valuable clues about the operation of the visual system (Coren & Girgus, 1978), to the extent that visual aftereffects have been described as the psychologist's microelectrode (Frisby, 1979). With the notable exception of the size-weight illusion, which was first described in the late nineteenth century (Charpentier, 1891), illusions involving the motor system have received much less attention. However, recent reports of illusory movements induced by mechanical vibration of the muscle tendon (Goodwin, McCloskey, & Matthews, 1972;Roll & Vedel, 1982;Vedel & Roll, 1983) have led to a revival of interest in kinesthetic illusions (Feldman & Latash, 1982a;Goodwin, 1976;Granit, 1972;Matthews, 1982). As with the classical visual illusions, these phenomena offer valuable insights into the perceptual mechanisms involved in proprioception and must be explained in terms of normal physiological mechanisms. I discuss disturbances in the perception of limb position and movement and of force and weight in this review in the context of their contribution to understanding perceptual processing in the sensorimotor system. Vibration-Induced Illusions Illusions of MovementIn 1972, two publications describing the effects of vibration on the perception of limb position and movement independently showed that vibration of a muscle tendon at 100 Hz induces illusory movements of the limb about which the vibrated Preparation of this article was supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lynette A. Jones, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, 3654 Drummond Street, Montreal, Quebec H3G 1Y5, Canada. muscle acts (Eklund, 1972;Goodwin et al., 1972). Using blindfolded subjects who were required to track the position of their vibrated arm with the unperturbed arm, Goodwin et al. investigated the effects of percutaneous muscle-tendon vibration on position sense at the elbow. They found that vibration of the biceps tendon in an immobilized arm consistently produced the il...

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“…Models positing a role for topdown processing in heaviness perception (Ross, 1969; Ellis & Lederman, 1998 or 'antiBayesian' biases (Brayanov & Smith, 2010) have been explored. Likewise, a number of early models claimed to describe especially the SWI (which is more robust and larger in magnitude than the MWI) in a cue combination framework by arbitrarily placing a negative weight on the expectancy cue (Anderson, 1970) or other similar assumptions (Cross & Rotkin, 1975) . Many of these models were unsatisfactory primarily because they described the magnitude of weight illusions but did not explain why they occurred.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The material-weight illusion is a Bayes-optimal percept under competing density priors

Peters

Zhang

Shams

2018

Preprint

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The material-weight illusion (MWI) is one example in a class of weight perception illusions that seem to defy principled explanation. In this illusion, when an observer lifts two objects of the same size and mass, but that appear to be made of different materials, the denserlooking (e.g., metal-look) object is perceived as lighter than the less-dense-looking (e.g., polystyrene-look) object. Like the size-weight illusion (SWI), this perceptual illusion occurs in the opposite direction of predictions from an optimal Bayesian inference process, which predicts that the denser-looking object should be perceived as heavier, not lighter. The presence of this class of illusions challenges the often-tacit assumption that Bayesian inference holds universal explanatory power to describe human perception across (nearly) all domains: If an entire class of perceptual illusions cannot be captured by the Bayesian framework, how could it be argued that human perception truly follows optimal inference? However, we recently showed that the SWI can be explained by an optimal hierarchical Bayesian causal inference process (Peters, Ma & Shams, 2016) in which the observer uses haptic information to arbitrate among competing hypotheses about objects' possible density relationship. Here we extend the model to demonstrate that it can readily explain the MWI as well. That hierarchical Bayesian inference can explain both illusions strongly suggests that even puzzling percepts arise from optimal inference processes. AbstractThe materialweight illusion (MWI) is one example in a class of weight perception illusions that seem to defy principled explanation. In this illusion, when an observer lifts two objects of the same size and mass, but that appear to be made of different materials, the denserlooking (e.g., metallook) object is perceived as lighter than the lessdenselooking (e.g., polystyrenelook) object. Like the sizeweight illusion (SWI), this perceptual illusion occurs in the opposite direction of predictions from an optimal Bayesian inference process, which predicts that the denserlooking object should be perceived as heavier , not lighter. The presence of this class of illusions challenges the oftentacit assumption that Bayesian inference holds universal explanatory power to describe human perception across (nearly) all domains: If an entire class of perceptual illusions cannot be captured by the Bayesian framework, how could it be argued that human perception truly follows optimal inference? However, we recently showed that the SWI can be explained by an optimal hierarchical Bayesian causal inference process (Peters, Ma & Shams, 2016) in which the observer uses haptic information to arbitrate among competing hypotheses about objects' possible density relationship. Here we extend the model to demonstrate that it can readily explain the MWI as well. That hierarchical Bayesian inference can explain both illusions strongly suggests that even puzzling percepts arise from optimal inference processes.

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The relation between size and apparent heaviness

Cited by 91 publications

References 24 publications

Rotational inertia and multimodal heaviness perception

Rotational inertia and multimodal heaviness perception

Motor illusions: What do they reveal about proprioception?

The material-weight illusion is a Bayes-optimal percept under competing density priors

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