Perception Of Height Research Articles

The impact of gravity on perceived object height

Altering posture relative to the direction of gravity, or exposure to microgravity has been shown to affect many aspects of perception, including size perception. Our aims in this study were to investigate whether changes in posture and long-term exposure to microgravity bias the visual perception of object height and to test whether any such biases are accompanied by changes in precision. We also explored the possibility of sex/gender differences. Two cohorts of participants (12 astronauts and 20 controls, 50% women) varied the size of a virtual square in a simulated corridor until it was perceived to match a reference stick held in their hands. Astronauts performed the task before, twice during, and twice after an extended stay onboard the International Space Station. On Earth, they performed the task of sitting upright and lying supine. Earth-bound controls also completed the task five times with test sessions spaced similarly to the astronauts; to simulate the microgravity sessions on the ISS they lay supine. In contrast to earlier studies, we found no immediate effect of microgravity exposure on perceived object height. However, astronauts robustly underestimated the height of the square relative to the haptic reference and these estimates were significantly smaller 60 days or more after their return to Earth. No differences were found in the precision of the astronauts’ judgments. Controls underestimated the height of the square when supine relative to sitting in their first test session (simulating Pre-Flight) but not in later sessions. While these results are largely inconsistent with previous results in the literature, a posture-dependent effect of simulated eye height might provide a unifying explanation. We were unable to make any firm statements related to sex/gender differences. We conclude that no countermeasures are required to mitigate the acute effects of microgravity exposure on object height perception. However, space travelers should be warned about late-emerging and potentially long-lasting changes in this perceptual skill.

Perceptions of height and weight screening and associations with body image: a cross-sectional study in early primary school children

BackgroundDespite parental concern, few studies have investigated children’s experiences with school-based screening of growth deviations. This study aimed to explore perceptions of height and weight screening and associations with body...

The Impact of Orienteering Sports in Universities on the Psychological Cognition of College Students

Orienteering, as an emerging sport, has developed rapidly in China. In addition to the continuous emergence of a large number of orienteering clubs, major universities across the country are also gradually popularizing and offering this course. Through research, it has been found that the mental health status of contemporary college students is not optimistic, especially for some students whose cognitive abilities such as attention, perception, and thinking need to be improved. Orienteering can effectively improve the attention ability of college students, with a significant promoting effect on attention allocation, attention breadth, and attention stability. Orienteering is beneficial for the development of sensory perception ability among college students, with significant improvements and improvements in time perception, distance perception, and height perception.

Head rotation and the perception of eyelid height and contour

PurposeEffective visual perceptual processing is one of the many components of surgical competence. Human face identification is most efficient when viewed upright. However, it is not yet clear how this...

Perception of age, gender, and talker height from children’s vowels

In his 1989 review of vowel perception [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 85, 2088–2113], Terry Nearey observed that the acoustic properties of vowels vary substantially across talkers due to differences in talker size. Taller speakers tend to have lower formant frequencies and lower fundamental frequencies than shorter speakers, and listeners appear to take these relationships into account in vowel identification. In this talk, we follow up some of the questions raised in that paper, reviewing recent findings on the perception of age, gender, and talker height in children’s voices. Children exhibit substantial age-related changes in fundamental and formant frequencies due to growth of the larynx and vocal tract, presenting an interesting opportunity to explore the perceptual consequences of these changes. Listeners’ perceptual judgments of age and gender reveal complex interdependencies, consistent with the idea that these indexical attributes are jointly estimated, in a manner that reflects their shared dependence on acoustic parameters related to perceived talker height.

Perception of dynamic pitch and prominence in speech

The perception of dynamic – constantly changing – pitch in speech has been extensively studied in psychoacoustics and linguistics. In psychoacoustic studies, listeners are usually presented with short stimuli such as vowels or syllables, and their ability to discriminate a pair of stimuli is assessed. On the other hand, linguistic studies concern intonation over an utterance. Intonation entails not only acoustic prominence realised by pitch, duration, and loudness, but also listeners’ knowledge about the relative prominence between syllables or between words in their language. This paper discusses a series of speech perception experiments using both psychoacoustic and linguistic tasks. Participants judged either relative pitch height or prominence between two pitch peaks or valleys in an utterance. Native English speakers in different age and dialectal groups were tested. The results showed that, first, listeners’ pitch height discrimination in the utterance context seems to be more accurate than previously reported. Second, there is a robust perceptual asymmetry between pitch peaks and valleys, the valleys posing significant challenges in perception. Third, listeners’ perception of pitch height and prominence is disassociated. The findings taken together suggest an intricate interaction between the physical properties of the stimuli and listeners’ top-down knowledge in the perception of speech intonation.

The Treatment of Growth Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence.

3% of all children are unusually short, and 3% are unusually tall. New approaches have broadened the range of therapeutic options in treating growth disorders. This review is based on publications retrieved by a selective review of the literature and on the authors' clinical experience. Pituitary growth hormone deficiency is treated with recombinant growth hormone. Long-acting preparations of this type became available recently, but their long-term safety and efficacy are still unknown. Vosoritide, a CNP analogue, has also been approved for the treatment of achondroplasia, and severe primary deficiency of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) can be treated with recombinant IGF-1. In the treatment of excessively tall stature, new information on the safety of growth-attenuating treatment and an altered perception of above-average height in society have led to a change in management. There are new options for the treatment of rare causes of short stature, while new information on the safety of treatment strategies for excessive tallness have led to a reconsideration of surgical intervention. There is insufficient evidence on the benefits and risks of supraphysiological GH therapy and of newer treatment options for which there are as yet no robust data on adult height. Therefore, before any treatment is provided, physicians should give patients and their families detailed information and discuss their expectations from treatment and the goals that treatment can be expected to achieve.

Inaccurate but predictable: Vocal-tract length estimation and gender stereotypes in height perception

Research suggests human listeners are not very accurate in assessing the size of adults from their speech, though they appear to be consistent in their judgments across listeners. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the importance of the higher formants for providing consistent height judgments, how consistent these height judgments are across replications, and the role of f0 and social knowledge in maintaining the stability of apparent speaker height judgments. Listeners were presented with syllables produced by 30 adult male and female speakers, and were asked to identify the word, the gender of the speaker, and the height of the speaker. In a second experiment, listeners were presented with voiced and (synthetic) whispered speech and asked to provide the same responses. Results indicate that speakers use acoustic cues in largely predictable ways, leading to consistent apparent height judgments when averaged across listeners. However, the behavior of individual listeners is unpredictable, and the accuracy of apparent height judgments with respect to veridical heights is low. Finally, results suggest that non-acoustic social knowledge regarding the expected sizes of adult males and females play an important role in the determination of apparent height from speech.

Perception of talker height in children’s productions of sustained /ɑ/

Children’s voices reflect changes in physical size as they grow. At a previous ASA meeting, we showed that adult listeners can estimate the height of child talkers, ages 5–18 years, from /hVd/ syllables. The present study focuses on listener judgments of child talker height from a sustained /ɑ/ vowel, which lacks durational cues and transitions between phonological segments. The stimuli for this experiment were 1-s excerpts with stable amplitude and fundamental frequency (F0) from sustained /ɑ/ tokens by 174 talkers (including those from the /hVd/ experiment). 18 adult listeners judged talker sex and height for each token. Judgments of each talker’s height were consistent across the two experiments. Perceived talker height was moderately correlated with actual height (r = .66). When talker sex was identified incorrectly, height was underestimated for taller females and overestimated for males. Consistent with our previous study, significant relationships were observed between listener judgments of talker height and acoustic measures (geometric mean of the lowest three formants, F0, and additional variables related to the voicing source). The results extend findings from the previous study, showing that the relationship between summary acoustic measures and perception of talker height is preserved when the stimuli comprise only sustained /ɑ/.

Don't be a Square: The processing mechanisms characterising the elemental dimensions of width and height.

What are the geometric and information processing characteristics of elementary figures composed of simple physical dimensions? There have been a number of investigations of perception of rectangles, including debate about configurality (e.g., integrality and gestalt properties) as well as the prime perceptual dimensions. Yet, because of ambiguity even in the "right" definition of configurality and an absence of penetrating methodologies, there is still little known concerning the information processing of these patterns. To this end, the present study brings together two separate theory-driven methodologies, general recognition theory (GRT) and systems factorial technology (SFT). The first attacks the problem of dimensional interactions while the latter seeks to uncover process characteristics such as architecture, decisional stopping rules, and workload capacity. The same observers and as much as possible, the same stimuli were used in both approaches. Through our GRT analyses, we found strong evidence for dependencies between the percepts of height and width on both within-stimulus and cross-stimulus bases. Height perception was better with narrow widths and width perception was superior with short heights. In addition, a significant positive within-trial correlation of dimensions was evidenced within squares but not with rectangles. Our SFT initiative uncovered consistent signatures of parallelism paired with super capacity, the latter appearing both through the traditional conditioning on being correct and still present when modest speed accuracy trade-off was accounted for. Thus, the SFT and GRT inferences were quite compatible with a plausible cause of the positive correlations being across-channel facilitatory interactions which led to super capacity processing.

Integrated forms of the education intended for preschool children with disorders of carpal functions in the correction of their practical activity

The article considers and analyses the most effective integrated forms of labour and physical education of preschool children with disorders of carpal functions in the context of the formation and correction of their subject-practical activities. The main carpal functions include the ones which enable: support, spring resistance, pushing, stepping, balancing, gripping, height perception, two-handed coordination, manipulation, instrument-targeting, etc. Occupational education (occupational therapy) involves the use of tools for the development, restoration or correction of impaired wrist functions. Based on the analysis of available information on the problem of labour therapy, as well as our own long-term practical developments, the main forms of correction of pre-schoolers’ impaired carpal functions through labour combined with the possibilities of correctional physical education in preschool educational establishments. These included: individual physical exercises (with the elements of labour therapy), physical education classes with the elements of labour therapy, exercise classes with the elements of labour therapy, individual correction of physical development of the child by means of labour therapy, free activity in the form of independent instrumental activities, walks with the elements of labour therapy, home labour therapy. The perspective of research in this area is in the development of the relationship between children’s physical and labour education in the context of the correction of their carpal subject-practical activities.

Body Satisfaction in Early Adolescence: A Multisite Comparison

PurposeThis study assesses the relationship between unequal gender perceptions, socioecological factors, and body satisfaction among early adolescents in six urban poor settings in four countries. MethodsA cross-sectional study, part of the Global Early Adolescent Study, was conducted in Shanghai, China; Cuenca, Ecuador; Kinshasa, DRC; and three cities in Indonesia: Denpasar, Semarang, and Bandar Lampung. Bivariate and multiple linear regressions were conducted to assess the relationships between body satisfaction, perceptions of gender norms, and socioecological factors. A final sample of 7840 respondents aged between 10 and 14 years were included in the analysis. ResultsAdolescents who endorsed more traditional sex roles and traits were more likely to be satisfied with their bodies in Kinshasa and Indonesia, while only endorsement of GST was associated with body satisfaction in Shanghai. Individual factors related to body satisfaction varied by site and included perceived health status, perception of body weight, height, and growth rate. Family and neighborhood factors related to increased body satisfaction varied by site and sex and included closeness to parents, parental communication, discussing bodily changes with anyone, parental awareness, and perception of neighborhood. ConclusionThe results highlight the association between gender norms and social factors at individual, family, and neighborhood levels with body satisfaction. While associations differ significantly by site and sex, namely in perception of body weight and height, there exists commonalities that suggest body satisfaction, gender norms, and social context are intertwined.

Task Construal Influences Estimations of the Environment

People’s characteristics can affect their perception of the physical environment, and the judgments and estimates they make about their surroundings. Estimates of the environment change based on observers’ metabolic state, physical properties, and the potential effort they would need to exert for a certain action. The functional role of such scaling is to provide agents with information on possible actions and their energetic costs. Combining actions with costs facilitates both higher-level planning (e.g., choosing an optimal running speed on a marathon) as well as planning on lower levels of an action hierarchy, such as determining the best movement trajectories for energy-efficient action. Recently, some of the findings on reported effects of effort on perception have been challenged as arising from task demands—participants guessing the purpose of the experimental manipulation and adjusting their estimates as a result. Arguably however, the failed replications used overly distracting cover stories which may have introduced task demands of their own, and masked other effects. The current study tested the generality of effects of potential effort on height and distance perception, employing effective yet not distracting cover stories. Four experiments attempted to identify conditions under which anticipated effort may systematically change perceptual estimates. Experiment 1 found that height estimates were not influenced by the effort required to place objects of different weights onto surfaces of varying heights. Experiments 2, 3 used two different effort manipulations (walking vs. hopping; and carrying an empty vs. a heavy backpack, respectively) and found that these did not influence estimates of distance (to be) traveled. Experiment 4 also used backpack weight to manipulate effort but critically, unlike Exp. 1–3 it did not employ a cover story and participants did not traverse distances after giving estimates. In contrast with the first three experiments, distances in the final experiment were estimated as longer when participants were encumbered by a backpack. Combined, these results suggest that the measured effects on the estimation of distance were due to how participants construed the task rather than being of a perceptual nature.

Optical and gravito-inertial contributions to the perception and control of height in a simulated Low-Altitude Flight context

Low-Altitude Flight (LAF) is a flight formation consisting of rapid close ground flight. Perception and control of self-motion, allowing for optimal information collection and rapid adaptation, are of fundamental importance during LAF, but remain largely unexplored. This study aimed to analyse the impact of visuo-vestibular stimuli on the monitoring of height in a motion-based simulated LAF context. Thirteen non-pilots were tested in different environmental conditions, in which optical and gravito-inertial (GI) information were manipulated. The visual environment, displayed with a VR headset, was a low-textured landscape with identical and equally spaced trees throughout the trials. The GI environment was designed thanks to a motion-based simulator. Results showed that participants had better performances in a visuo-vestibular environment than in a visual-only setting, indicating that multi-sensory information was picked-up faster than a mono-sensory structure. Additionally, we found differences in the contribution of vestibular inputs depending on the kind of task. Practitioner summary: Low-Altitude-Flight (LAF) manoeuvres require delicate aircraft control. Two experiments using a large flight simulator investigated how visual and vestibular stimulation contribute to LAF perception and control. Results suggest that both sources of stimulation need to be combined for accurate performance, with consequences for simulator-based training scenarios. Abbreviations: LAF: low altitude flight; GI: gravito-inertial; 1/2/3D: 1/2/3 dimensions; VR: virtual reality; Mvt: movement; GVE: good visual environment; DVE: degraded visual environment; SSQ: simulator motion sickness questionnary; RT: reaction time; DIMSS: dynamic interface modelling and simulation system metric; corrAcf: maximum correlation coefficient; corrLag: maximum correlation lag; DFT: deviation from target; StdJ: standard deviation of the joytick value; NCR: number of control reversal

How Much Money Do You Need to Feel Taller? Impact of Money on Perception of Body Height.

Body height is considered to be one of the most important reproductive signals. However, there are only a few publications on what influences the sense of whether we assess ourselves as tall or short. In the present contribution, the psychological impact of money on the evaluation of a person’s own height was tested. We performed two experimental studies in which the respondents had contact with different amounts of money and were asked to evaluate their body height with the use of a laser pointer. The first experiment (N = 61) showed that contact with money significantly increased subjective height evaluation, and the effect was independent of participants’ real body height. The second experiment (N = 120) replicated the effect of money manipulation. Moreover, it was shown that higher amounts of money increased one’s own height estimation more than smaller amounts. Our research shows that money can be used for building one’s social position, which is an attractiveness signal that can influence one’s own height evaluation.

Spatial knowledge acquisition with virtual semantic landmarks in mixed reality-based indoor navigation

ABSTRACT Landmarks are essential and widely used in human navigation. However, many indoor environments lack visually salient landmarks, which leads to difficulties in navigating in and learning complex and similar-looking indoor environments. In this study, we designed and implemented virtual semantic landmarks in Mixed Reality (MR)-based indoor environments and conducted a user study to explore whether such landmarks can assist spatial knowledge acquisition during navigation. More specifically, we employed the untethered, head-mounted mixed reality device Microsoft HoloLens and used iconic holograms to show the semantic landmarks. In the user study, we used sketch map, landmark locating tasks and interview to assess the results of the spatial knowledge acquisition and collect advice on improving the MR-based navigation interface. The results show that virtual semantic landmarks can assist the acquisition of corresponding knowledge, as such landmarks were labeled second most often in landmark locating task. In addition, individual cases show that head-mounted mixed reality devices may influence not only vision, but also height or time perception of certain users. Our result can be applied to facilitate the design of MR-based navigation interfaces and assist spatial knowledge acquisition.

The Role of Height Perception in Administrative Building Façade Visual Sustainability

One of the defining characteristics of modern structural engineering feat is height. Tall buildings have been continually listed to be aesthetically pleasing with great impact in defining the immediate built environment. The affirmation of this statement was tested on university administrative building facades to identify the relationship between building height as an aesthetic perception for visual sustainability. In testing the validity of building height in aesthetic preference for future application in architectural designing, ten administrative buildings were selected from southwest Nigerian universities through the stratified random sampling technique. Quantitative data were obtained from 577 respondents, which comprised of staff and students from the ten selected universities through a close-ended structured questionnaire. Selected building façade photographs were also attached to elicit a response from respondents. The study involved identification of height as an important building façade element and also examining respondents’ perception of building façade height for visual sustainability. Data analysis was done using frequencies, percentages, mean ranking, and factor analysis. Building façade height was ranked third in terms of importance for visual sustainability, while buildings above four floors were observed to be most preferred by respondents. The findings of this study imply the need for planners and designers to ensure distinguishing the university administrative building as the tallest in relation to other campus building facades. This affirms the importance of height in the visual sustainability of this building typology and overall campus outlook.

Negotiating ground level perturbations in walking: Visual perception and expectation of curb height modulate muscle activity

To negotiate visible and unpredictable changes in ground level, humans use different control strategies depending on the visibility. In case of fully visible perturbations, humans can anticipate the occurrence and the magnitude of the perturbation. In case of a camouflaged perturbation, they can anticipate the occurrence based on the camouflage cover but need to predict the magnitude from experience, as it is not visible. The purpose of this study was to investigate the anticipatory muscular control strategy humans employ when walking down curbs of different height and to investigate how this strategy differs if the step down is fully visible or camouflaged. The activity of five bilateral lower limb muscles (M. gastrocnemius medialis, M. soleus, M. tibialis anterior, M. biceps femoris and M. vastus medialis) of eight healthy subjects was recorded during walking down visible (0, −10 and −20 cm) and camouflaged curbs (0 and −10 cm). The results reveal that the M. gastrocnemius shows a clear anticipatory adaptation to visible curbs in the contralateral and partly also the ipsilateral leg, which further depends on the curb height. Furthermore, in case of a camouflaged perturbation, M. gastrocnemius activity of the contralateral leg shows an adaptation that indicates an average prediction of the curb height, presumably based on previous experience.

STATURE AND STATUS: HEIGHT PERCEPTIONS AND ASPIRATIONS OF SELECTED FILIPINO YOUTH

Purpose of the study: This study aimed to provide an explanation of the perceptions of height by selected Filipino youth and discuss the factors that shape these perceptions. By exploring these factors, this study gives an overview of the extended height affects an individual's experience and aspirations. Methodology: Both quantitative and qualitative surveys were conducted on 300 youth participants (150 males and 150 females), where they rated 30 statements and answered open-ended questions. Quantitative data were analyzed statistically, and qualitative data were arranged into a comprehensive matrix and thematic coding of responses. Main findings: Height mainly symbolizes three components: advantage, capability, and desirability. Participants believe that being tall is an advantage in playing sports, will open up opportunities for work, and can help in doing everyday tasks. Height can also be a key to attracting the opposite sex. The ‘bigger is better’ prejudice appears to extend to a person’s experiences as well—short people’s experiences differ from those of taller people. Benefits brought by tallness is so sought that many exert extra efforts to grow taller. Tall bodies demonstrate a non-economic advantage that gives higher status and sociopolitical distinction in society. Implications: The topic of body size is potent for analyzing culture and power. This study provides evidence on the biases on height perception by the Filipino youth and can be useful in future studies relating to height. Originality/Novelty of the study: There are either limited or no studies concentrating on cultural perceptions of height conducted in developing countries such as the Philippines. Moreover, the height of Filipinos has rarely been reported, and the data that are available tend to be in relatively obscure publications.

Embodied Cognition in Performance: The Impact of Michael Chekhov's Acting Exercises on Affect and Height Perception.

Modern embodied approaches to cognitive science overlap with ideas long explored in theater. Performance coaches such as Michael Chekhov have emphasized proprioceptive awareness of movement as a path to attaining psychological states relevant for embodying characters and inhabiting fictional spaces. Yet, the psychology of performance remains scientifically understudied. Experiments, presented in this paper, investigated the effects of three sets of exercises adapted from Chekhov’s influential techniques for actors’ training. Following a continuous physical demonstration and verbal prompts by the actress Bonnie Eckard, 29 participants enacted neutral, expanding, and contracting gestures and attitudes in space. After each set of exercises, the participants’ affect (pleasantness and arousal) and self-perceptions of height were measured. Within the limitations of the study, we measured a significant impact of the exercises on affect: pleasantness increased by 50% after 15 min of expanding exercises and arousal increased by 15% after 15 min of contracting exercises, each relative to the other exercise. Although the exercises produced statistically non-significant changes in the perceived height, there was a significant relation between perceived height and affect, in which perceived height increased with increases in either pleasantness, or arousal. These findings provide a preliminary support for Chekhov’s intuition that expanding and contracting physical actions exert opposite effects on the practitioners’ psychological experience. Further studies are needed to consider a wider range of factors at work in Chekhov’s method and the embodied experience of acting in general.