Duck! Scaling the height of a horizontal barrier to body height

Recent research shows that the body is used to scale environmental extents. We question whether the body is used to scale heights as measured by real actions (Experiments 1 and 2) or by judgments about action and extent made from a single viewpoint (Experiments 3 and 4). First, participants walked under barriers naturally, when wearing shoes, or when wearing a helmet. Participants required a larger margin of safety (they ducked at shorter heights) when they were made taller. In follow-up experiments, participants visually matched barrier heights and judged whether they could walk under them when wearing shoes or a helmet. Only the helmet decreased visually matched estimates; action judgments were no different when participants’ eye height increased. The final experiment suggested that the change in matched estimates may have been due to lack of experience wearing the helmet. Overall, the results suggest that perceived height is scaled to the body and that when body height is altered, experience may moderate the rescaling of height.     

Using eye height in different postures to scale the heights of objects

Four experiments examined eye height (EH) scaling of object height across different postures. In Experiment 1, participants viewed rectangular targets while they were standing, seated, and prone. Standing and seated judgments were similar, possibly due to EH scaling. Prone judgments were significantly lower, a result not attributable to the unfamiliarity of that posture (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, shifts of seated EH produced height overestimations equivalent to those of standing viewers. Experiment 4 examined the visual salience of size information in the seated and prone judgments by holding EH constant and manipulating another source: linear perspective. Participants viewed targets placed on true- and false-perspective (FP) gradients. The FP gradient affected prone judgments but not seated judgments, which presumably relied on EH. It appears that the human visual system weights size information differentially depending on its utility.     

Keeping an eye on the violinist: motor experts show superior timing consistency in a visual perception task

Common coding theory states that perception and action may reciprocally induce each other. Consequently, motor expertise should map onto perceptual consistency in specific tasks such as predicting the exact timing of a musical entry. To test this hypothesis, ten string musicians (motor experts), ten non-string musicians (visual experts), and ten non-musicians were asked to watch progressively occluded video recordings of a first violinist indicating entries to fellow members of a string quartet. Participants synchronised with the perceived timing of the musical entries. Results revealed significant effects of motor expertise on perception. Compared to visual experts and non-musicians, string players not only responded more accurately, but also with less timing variability. These findings provide evidence that motor experts’ consistency in movement execution—a key characteristic of expert motor performance—is mirrored in lower variability in perceptual judgements, indicating close links between action competence and perception.     

Doggone affordances: Canine perception of affordances for reaching

Performing any behavior requires perceiving affordances—whether and how that behavior can be performed. Perception of affordances exhibits action scaling—choices about when to transition between two different modes of behavior reflect the fit between action capabilities and environmental properties. The boundary between distances that are perceived to be reachable with an arm-only reach and those that are perceived to be reachable with an arm-plus-torso reach occurs at farther distances for long-armed than for short-armed people, but at the same ratio of object-distance-to-arm length for both groups. To the extent that perception of affordances is supported by detection of invariant stimulation patterns, perception of a given affordance ought to exhibit action scaling regardless of species. We investigated the heights at which dogs chose to transition from reaching with the head only to rearing (i.e., reaching with the head plus torso). This transition occurred at a taller height for tall than for short dogs, but at the same ratio of shoulder-height-to-treat-height for both groups. The results demonstrate a similarity in perception of affordances across species and suggest that perception of affordances is supported by detection of lawfully structured stimulation patterns that may be invariant across species.     

Attentional blink magnitude is predicted by the ability to keep irrelevant material out of working memory

Participants have difficulty in reporting the second of two masked targets if the second target is presented within 500 ms of the first target—an attentional blink (AB). Individual participants differ in the magnitude of their AB. The present study employed an individual differences design and two visual working memory tasks to examine whether visual working memory capacity and/or the ability to exclude irrelevant information from visual working memory (working memory filtering efficiency) could predict individual differences in the AB. Visual working memory capacity was positively related to filtering efficiency, but did not predict AB magnitude. However, the degree to which irrelevant stimuli were admitted into visual working memory (i.e., poor filtering efficiency) was positively correlated with AB magnitude over and above visual working memory capacity. Good filtering efficiency may benefit the AB by not allowing irrelevant RSVP distractors to gain access to working memory.     

Body height and occupational success for actors and actresses

The association of body height with occupational success has been frequently studied, with previous research mainly finding a positive effect among men and positive or null effects among women. Occupational success has almost exclusively been measured so far by short-term success variables (e.g., annual income). In the present study, the relationship of success and height was examined in a group of actors and actresses using a large online database about movies (Internet Movie Database) where heights of actors and actresses are stated. The number of roles played in movies and television series during each actor's lifetime was used as a measure of long-term occupational success. No height effect was found for male actors but a significant negative effect was found for actresses, even after controlling for possible confounding influences (age and birth year). Compared to the general population, actors and actresses were significantly taller; however, actresses who were shorter than average were more likely to achieve greater occupational success, in terms of being featured in more movies.     

Variable preferences for sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS): Further evidence for an adjustment in relation to own height

In contemporary Western populations, some physical characteristics are sexually dimorphic, and it is known that these traits also affect human mate preferences. Height is one such characteristic, and evidence suggests that females prefer taller over shorter males, indeed, taller males have been found to have greater reproductive success. However, relative height is also important with ‘Sexual Dimorphism in Stature’ (SDS) calculated as male height/female height. Pawlowski (2003) showed that people adjust their preferences for SDS in relation to their own height in order to increase their potential pool of partners. The aim of the present study was to replicate Pawlowski’s study on a larger sample of participants, and to investigate the universality of the reported preference adjustment within European societies. We present data of 1102 men and women from three countries (Germany, Austria, and the UK) that confirm Pawlowski’s original data on a Polish sample. Moreover, the mechanism of an adjustment of SDS preferences in relation to own height was found in all three countries, suggesting that height dependent partner preference is a genuine feature in Western societies.     

Incidental visual memory for objects in scenes

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the existence of incidentally acquired, long-term, detailed visual memory for objects embedded in previously viewed scenes. Participants performed intentional memorization and incidental visual search learning tasks while viewing photographs of real-world scenes. A visual memory test for previously viewed objects from these scenes then followed. Participants were not aware that they would be tested on the scenes following incidental learning in the visual search task. In two types of memory tests for visually specific object information (token discrimination and mirror-image discrimination), performance following both the memorization and visual search conditions was reliably above chance. These results indicate that recent demonstrations of good visual memory during scene viewing are not due to intentional scene memorization. Instead, long-term visual representations are incidentally generated as a natural product of scene perception.     

Effects of laterality and pitch height of an auditory accessory stimulus on horizontal response selection: The Simon effect and the SMARC effect

In the present article, we investigated the effects of pitch height and the presented ear (laterality) of an auditory stimulus, irrelevant to the ongoing visual task, on horizontal response selection. Performance was better when the response and the stimulated ear spatially corresponded (Simon effect), and when the spatial—musical association of response codes (SMARC) correspondence was maintained—that is, right (left) response with a high-pitched (low-pitched) tone. These findings reveal an automatic activation of spatially and musically associated responses by task-irrelevant auditory accessory stimuli. Pitch height is strong enough to influence the horizontal responses despite modality differences with task target.     

身高的心理效应及其内在机制

身高对心理因素的影响被称为身高的心理效应。日常生活中,人们普遍认为身高较高者有更多机遇、更受重视。本文对探究身高心理效应的文献进行了梳理,发现身高影响人们的社会知觉、人格、择偶行为和心理健康水平。身高的这些效应在一定程度上可以从进化心理学、社会规范、视知觉及自证预言等视角加以解释。未来的研究应进一步理清变量之间的关系,拓展身高的测量方式和研究方法,进一步探究其内在机制,并挖掘身高心理效应在中国情境下的独特性。     

Plunging into the pool of death: imagining a dangerous outcome influences distance perception

We examined whether manipulating the imagined consequences of falling would influence the perception of height, distance, and size. In experiment 1, height and size perception were measured when participants stood at a short height (0.89 m) or a medium height (1.91 m) above either an empty pool or a pool filled with a bed of nails. Participants who viewed the bed of nails and imagined falling into it estimated both the height as taller and the size of the bed of nails as larger than participants who imagined falling into an empty pool. In a second experiment, participants overestimated the horizontal ground distance to and across the bed of nails after being told to imagine jumping over it. Overall, these experiments suggest that costs associated with imagined actions can influence the perception of both vertical and horizontal extents that are not inherently dangerous.     

Accuracy of parents' reports of height and weight

The accuracy of parents' reports of their own height and weight and the height and weight of their obese children, who were about to enter a weight control program, was assessed. Measured height and weights of 146 mothers, 55 fathers, and 150 children who attended a screening session were compared to the heights and weights they had previously reported on a demographic questionnaire. Eighty-four percent of the reported weights were accurate within ±5 lbs.; 71% of the reported heights were accurate within ±1 in. Parents' reports of weight tended to underestimate actual weights, with the magnitude of underestimation greater for mothers than for fathers, while reported heights overestimated actual height, with the magnitude of overestimation greatest for fathers. Errors in the parents' reports of children's weight were related to the child's actual weight and body mass index (BMI), with substantial underestimation of actual weight in the heaviest decile of children in the sample.Preparation of this paper was supported in part by Grant HDMH12520-01 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Mental Health. Reprints can be obtained from Rena R. Wing, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, 3811 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15261.     

Women want taller men more than men want shorter women

Physical characteristics, such as height, play an important role in human mate preferences. Satisfaction with one’s own height and one’s partner height seem likely to be related to these preferences. Using a student sample (N = 650), we show that women are not only more selective, but also more consistent, than men, in their partner height preferences. Women prefer, on average, a larger height difference between themselves and their partner (i.e. males being much taller than themselves) than men do. This effect is even more pronounced when examining satisfaction with actual partner height: women are most satisfied when their partner was 21 cm taller, whereas men are most satisfied when they were 8 cm taller than their partner. Next, using data from our sample and that of a previously published study (N = 52,677), we show that for men, height is more important to the expression of satisfaction with one’s own height than it is for women. Furthermore, slightly above average height women and tall men are most satisfied with their heights. We conclude that satisfaction with one’s own height is at least partly a consequence of the height preference of the opposite sex and satisfaction with one’s partner height.     

Living large: the powerful overestimate their own height

In three experiments, we tested the prediction that individuals' experience of power influences their perceptions of their own height. High power, relative to low power, was associated with smaller estimates of a pole's height relative to the self (Experiment 1), with larger estimates of one's own height (Experiment 2), and with choice of a taller avatar to represent the self in a second-life game (Experiment 3). These results emerged regardless of whether power was experientially primed (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated through assigned roles (Experiment 2). Although a great deal of research has shown that more physically imposing individuals are more likely to acquire power, this work is the first to show that powerful people feel taller than they are. The discussion considers the implications for existing and future research on the physical experience of power.     

Repetition blindness: out of sight or out of mind?

Does repetition blindness represent a failure of perception or of memory? In Experiment 1, participants viewed rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) sentences. When critical words (C1 and C2) were orthographically similar, C2 was frequently omitted from serial report; however, repetition priming for C2 on a postsentence lexical decision task was equivalent whether or not C1 was similar to C2. In Experiment 2, participants monitored RSVP sentences for a predetermined target. Participants frequently failed to detect the target when it was preceded by an orthographically similar word. In Experiment 3, the authors investigated the role of the attentional blink in this effect. These experiments suggest that repetition blindness is a failure of conscious perception, consistent with predictions of the token-individuation hypothesis.     

Visual experience enhances infants' use of task-relevant information in an action task

Four experiments examined whether infants' use of task-relevant information in an action task could be facilitated by visual experience in the laboratory. Twelve- but not 9-month-old infants spontaneously used height information and chose an appropriate (taller) cover in search of a hidden tall toy. After watching examples of covering events in a teaching session, 9-month-old infants succeeded in an action task that involved the same event category; learning was not generalized to events from a different category. The present results demonstrate that learning through visual experience can be transferred to infants' subsequent actions. These findings shed light on the link between perception and action in infancy.     

Implicit influence of affective postures on the perception of others: you can't show me how I feel

This study examined how one's own posture influences the perception of another's posture in a task with implicit affective information. In 2 experiments, participants assumed or viewed a body posture and then compared that posture with a viewed posture. They were not told that postures varied in affective valence: positive, negative, neutral-abstract, or neutral-meaningful. Posture affect influenced both accuracy and response time measures of posture discrimination. Participants were slower and less accurate for targets that matched an assumed posture, but only for affective postures. This pattern did not hold for matching affectively neutral postures (meaningful or not), nonmatching postures, or for purely visual comparisons. These results are consistent with both cognitive embodiment theories postulating that personal body posture influences the perception of other's postures and emotional embodiment theories postulating sensorimotor and emotional simulation processes that create correspondences between one's own and another's emotional postures. Nonetheless, these findings differ from studies finding facilitation for explicit emotional judgments of affective congruence. People use different information depending on task requirements. The assumption of an affective posture may activate simulations of personal emotional experiences that may, in turn, serve to differentiate personal posture perception from ostensibly the same posture in another person.     

Visual distortion of body size modulates pain perception

Pain is a complex subjective experience that is shaped by numerous contextual factors. For example, simply viewing the body reduces the reported intensity of acute physical pain. In this study, we investigated whether this visually induced analgesia is modulated by the visual size of the stimulated body part. We measured contact heat-pain thresholds while participants viewed either their own hand or a neutral object in three size conditions: reduced, actual size, or enlarged. Vision of the body was analgesic, increasing heat-pain thresholds by an average of 3.2 °C. We further found that visual enlargement of the viewed hand enhanced analgesia, whereas visual reduction of the hand decreased analgesia. These results demonstrate that pain perception depends on multisensory representations of the body and that visual distortions of body size modulate sensory components of pain.