Catching ease influences perceived speed: Evidence for action-specific effects from action-based measures

Abstract

According to the action-specific account of perception, people perceive the environment in terms of their ability to act. Here, we directly tested this claim by using an action-based measure of perceived speed: Participants attempted to catch a virtual fish by releasing a virtual net. The net varied in size, making the task easier or harder. We measured perceived speed by using explicit judgment-based measures and an action-based measure (time to release the net). Participants released the net later when playing with the big as compared with the small net, indicating that the fish looked to be moving more slowly when participants played with the big net. Explicit judgments of fish speed were similarly influenced by net size. These results provide converging evidence from both explicit and action-based measures that a perceiver's ability to act influences a common underlying process, most likely perceived speed, rather than postperceptual processes such as response formation.