APPARENT LENGTH OF BODY PARTS ATTENDED TO SEPARATELY AND IN COMBINATION.

Abstract

In recent years, there has been increasing attention focused on the area of body experience, body percept, body concept, body image, etc. (cf. 1, 2 ) . These studies have usually treated perception of body-part attributes in isolation. The present research deals with changes in one attribute, apparent size of body parts, considered separately as well as in meaningful combinations. A method for approaching chis problem and data derived from a first application, are presented. The technique involved estimating the length of the body parrs constituting the total length of the body, viz., head, neck, trunk, thigh, and leg, in isolation, and making estimations of the size of two adjacent parts, e.g., head plus neck, neck plus trunk, etc.; three adjacent parts, e.g., head plus neck plus trunk; four adjacenr pgrrs; and five adjacent parts or total body length. In a completely darkened room S (N .I 115) was presented with a dim, vertical strip of light ( 8 ft. X I / i in.) across which w o black strips ( % in. wide) could be moved concurrently to demarcate a length. S's task was to instruct E to move the black strips until the distance berween them appeared to be equal to the length of the body part or combined body parts to be estimated. Individual body parts, assessed singly, were all overestinzated relative to physical length; however, the ove~estimaiion differed significantly (correlated t = 5.90; p < .01) from physical length only for the trunk. As adjacent parrs were combined, the apparent length of the combinations estimared as a unit tended to be increasingly underertimated with respect to both physical length and the sum of the estimations of the single parts making u p thar combinarion. The sums of the estimations of body parts made singly were significantly larger than the combinations of those parts estimated as a unit in 7 out of 1 0 comparisons.' For example, for total body length, the sum of the estimated lengrh of each of the five single parts constituting it yielded a mean body length of 77.1 in. The mean apparent length of the body, estimated as a unit (i.e., total body length), was 56.6 in. These findings indicate that individual body parts are overestimated relative to physical size, but thar meaningful combinations of body parts into larger wholes are underestimated when compared with the sum of the apparent size of the parts constituting that combinarion.