TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of spatial integration in the perception of surface orientation with active touch
AU - Giachritsis, Christos
AU - Wing, Alan
AU - Lovell, PG
PY - 2009/10/1
Y1 - 2009/10/1
N2 - Vision research has shown that perception of line orientation, in the fovea area, improves with line length (Westheimer & Ley, 1997). This suggests that the visual system may use spatial integration to improve perception of orientation. In the present experiments, we investigated the role of spatial integration in the perception of surface orientation using kinesthetic and proprioceptive information from shoulder and elbow. With their left index fingers, participants actively explored virtual slanted surfaces of different lengths and orientations, and were asked to reproduce an orientation or discriminate between two orientations. Results showed that reproduction errors and discrimination thresholds improve with surface length. This suggests that the proprioceptive shoulder-elbow system may integrate redundant spatial information resulting from extended arm movements to improve orientation judgments.
AB - Vision research has shown that perception of line orientation, in the fovea area, improves with line length (Westheimer & Ley, 1997). This suggests that the visual system may use spatial integration to improve perception of orientation. In the present experiments, we investigated the role of spatial integration in the perception of surface orientation using kinesthetic and proprioceptive information from shoulder and elbow. With their left index fingers, participants actively explored virtual slanted surfaces of different lengths and orientations, and were asked to reproduce an orientation or discriminate between two orientations. Results showed that reproduction errors and discrimination thresholds improve with surface length. This suggests that the proprioceptive shoulder-elbow system may integrate redundant spatial information resulting from extended arm movements to improve orientation judgments.
U2 - 10.3758/APP.71.7.1628
DO - 10.3758/APP.71.7.1628
M3 - Article
C2 - 19801622
SN - 1943-393X
SN - 1943-393X
SN - 1943-393X
SN - 1943-393X
VL - 71
SP - 1628
EP - 1640
JO - Attention, perception & psychophysics
JF - Attention, perception & psychophysics
IS - 7
ER -