Self-trained perception need not be veridical: striking can exaggerate judgment by wielding and can transfer exaggeration to new stimuli.

Abstract

Previous literature on self-training dynamic touch suggested that haptic judgments of length following wielding might benefit from new information through participants' own striking actions with the same stimuli. However, the conclusion that this self-training tended towards a veridical outcome of zero discrepancy between actual length and judged length was premature. In this replication, we allowed adult participants (n = 15) to strike on each trial and changed the stimuli in mid-experiment to determine whether striking helped participants build more accurate perceptions of length transferrable from one stimulus scale to another. We predicted that, if self-training led to better length judgments, the repeated striking would improve judgments and that, in turn, judgments following the switch of stimuli would show a good transfer of what participants had learned. On the other hand, self-training may simply exaggerate inertial properties of stimuli and may be sensitive to sudden changes in the scale of stimuli. Mixed-effect modeling of discrepancies show that striking only accentuated effects of inertial moment, producing exaggerated length judgments. Correlation between perceived length and actual length increased only for participants who experienced a switch in individual stimuli but not stimulus scale. We discuss the implications of these findings for any theoretical relationship between self-organization and veridicality.