Abstract
Earlier studies have revealed that the calibration of an action sometimes transfers in a functionally specific way—the calibration of one action transfers to other actions that serve the same goal, even when they are performed with different anatomical structures. In the present study, we tested whether attunement (the process by which perceivers learn to detect a more useful, specifying, informational pattern) follows such a functional organization. Participants were trained to perceive the length of rods by dynamic touch with one of their effectors. It was found that training the right hand resulted in an attunement to a specifying variable with both hands, but not with the feet. Training the other limbs did not result in attunement. However, substantial individual differences were found. The implications of the results are explored for theories on the organization of perceptual learning and discussions on individual differences in perception.
Highlights
Earlier studies have revealed that the calibration of an action sometimes transfers in a functionally specific way— the calibration of one action transfers to other actions that serve the same goal, even when they are performed with different anatomical structures
Does attunement follow a functional organization or is it anatomically specific? In the present study, we examine this by using the paradigm of length perception by dynamic touch
We found that in training length perception with one of the feet, the other limbs improve; but in training one of the hands, the transfer is confined to the other hand
Summary
Earlier studies have revealed that the calibration of an action sometimes transfers in a functionally specific way— the calibration of one action transfers to other actions that serve the same goal, even when they are performed with different anatomical structures. We tested whether attunement (the process by which perceivers learn to detect a more useful, specifying, informational pattern) follows such a functional organization. Perception and action can improve by learning to rely on the more useful information (Gibson & Gibson, 1955) This process has been referred to as the education of attention or attunement and has been observed in different paradigms (Fajen, 2005; Jacobs & Michaels, 2007; Withagen & van der Kamp, 2010). Novice perceivers have been found to detect the major principal moment of inertia (I1) and/or static moment (M) (Solomon and Turvey, 1988; Kingma, van de Langenberg, & Beek, 2004; Withagen & van Wermeskeren, 2009) These variables relate ambiguously to the length of rods; they are a function of the rod’s length, diameter, and material density. An instance of such a specifying mechanical variable is the ratio of I1 to M
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