Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The psychophysics of affordance perception: Stevens’ power law scaling of perceived maximum forward reachability with an object

  • Published:
Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This article has been updated

Abstract

The literatures on affordance perception and psychophysics are seminal in the basic study of perception and action. Nevertheless, the application of classic psychophysical methodologies/analysis to the study of affordance perception remains unexplored. In four experiments, we investigated the Stevens’ power law scaling of affordance perception. Participants reported maximum forward reaching ability with a series of rods (both seated and standing) for themselves and another person (confederate). Participants also reported a property of the rod set that has been explored in previous psychophysical experiments and changes in equal measure with forward reach-with-ability (length). In all, we found that affordance perception reports (β = .32) were an underaccelerated function of actual changes in reaching ability compared with relatively less accelerated length reports (β = .73). Affordance perception scaled with stimulus magnitude more similarly to brightness perception than length perception. Furthermore, affordance perception reports scaled similarly regardless of the actor (self and other), task context (seated and standing), or idiosyncrasies of the measurement procedure (controlling for distance compression effects), while length perception reports were sensitive to location/distance compression effects. We offer empirical and theoretical considerations, along with pathways for future research.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Change history

  • 15 June 2023

    Misplaced apostrophe in name corrected from Steven's to Stevens' in title and throughout article.

Notes

  1. We excluded the length reports from Experiment 3, since those were biased by the range effect described earlier.

References

  • Auerbach, C. (1971). Interdependence of Stevens’ exponents and discriminability measures. Psychological Review, 78(6), 556.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barsingerhorn, A. D., Frank, T. J. M., Zaal, Smith, J., & Pepping, G. (2012). On possibilities for action: The past, present, and future of affordance research. The Journal of the Philosophical-Interdisciplinary Vanguard, 3, 54–69.

  • Bernasconi, M., & Seri, R. (2016). What are we estimating when we fit Stevens’ power law? Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 75, 137–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bingham, G. P., & Stassen, M. G. (1994). Monocular egocentric distance information generated by head movement. Ecological Psychology, 6(3), 219–238.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butler, A. A., Lord, S. R., & Fitzpatrick, R. C. (2011). Reach distance but not judgment error is associated with falls in older people. Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biomedical Sciences and Medical Sciences, 66(8), 896–903.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carello, C., Grosofsky, A., Reichel, F. D., Solomon, H. Y., & Turvey, M. T. (1989). Visually perceiving what is reachable. Ecological Psychology, 1(1), 27–54.

  • Creem-Regehr, S. H., Gagnon, K. T., Geuss, M. N., & Stefanucci, J. K. (2013). Relating spatial perspective taking to the perception of other’s affordances: Providing a foundation for predicting the future behavior of others. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, Article 596. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00596

  • Duncan, P. W., Weiner, D. K., Chandler, J., & Studenski, S. (1990). Functional reach: A new clinical measure of balance. Journal of gerontology, 45(6), M192–M197.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Engen, T., & Levy, N. (1955). The influence of standards on psychophysical judgments. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 5(3), 193–197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fagot, R. F., & Pokorny, R. (1989). Bias effects on magnitude and ratio estimation power function exponents. Perception & Psychophysics, 45(3), 221–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fechner, G. (1966). Elements of psychophysics (Vol. 1). Holt, Rinehart and Winston. (Original work published 1860)

  • Gabbard, C., Robinovitch, S. N., & Cronin, T. (1999). Perception of postural limits in elderly nursing home and day care participants. Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biomedical Sciences and Medical Sciences, 54(3), B124–B130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gabbard, C., Cordova, A., & Lee, S. (2007). Examining the effects of postural constraints on estimating reach. Journal of Motor Behavior, 39(4), 242–246.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J. J. (1966a). The problem of temporal order in stimulation and perception. The Journal of Psychology, 62, 141–149.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J. J. (1966b). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kowal, K. H. (1993). The range effect as a function of stimulus set, presence of a standard, and modulus. Perception & Psychophysics, 54(4), 555–561.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopresti-Goodman, S. M., Turvey, M. T., & Frank, T. D. (2013). Negative hysteresis in the behavioral dynamics of the affordance “graspable.” Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 75, 1075–1091.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mantel, B., Stoffregen, T. A., Campbell, A., & Bardy, B. G. (2015). Exploratory movement generates higher-order information that is sufficient for accurate perception of scaled egocentric distance. PLOS ONE, 10(4), Article e0120025.

  • Mark, L. S. (1987). Eyeheight-scaled information about affordances: A study of sitting and stair climbing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 13(3), 361–370.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Marsh, K. L., Johnston, L., Richardson, M. J., & Schmidt, R. C. (2009). Toward a radically embodied, embedded social psychology. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39(7), 1217–1225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Molski, M. (2011). Extended Stevens’ power law. Physiology & Behavior, 104(5), 1031–1036.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pradham, P. L., & Hoffman, P. J. (1963). Effect of spacing and range of stimuli on magnitude estimation judgements. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66(6), 533–541.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ramenzoni, V. C., Riley, M. A., Shockley, K., & Davis, T. (2008). An information-based approach to action understanding. Cognition, 106(2), 1059–1070.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Soper, D. S. (2021). A-priori sample size calculator for student t-tests [Computer software]. Available from https://www.danielsoper.com/statcalc

  • Shockley, K., Carello, C., & Turvey, M. T. (2004). Metamers in the haptic perception of heaviness and moveableness. Perception & Psychophysics, 66(5), 731–742. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03194968

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, S. S. (1953). On the brightness of lights and the loudness of sounds. Science, 118, 576–579.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, S. S. (1957). On the psychophysical law. Psychological Review, 64(3), 153–181.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, S. S. (1960). The psychophysics of sensory function. American Scientist, 48(2), 226–253.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, S. S. (1975). Psychophysics: Introduction to its perceptual, neural, and social prospects. Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, S. S., & Galanter, E. H. (1957). Ratio scales and category scales for a dozen perceptual continua. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54(6), 377–411.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, S. S., & Guirao, M. (1963). Subjective scaling of length and area and the matching of length to loudness and brightness. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66(2), 177–186.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, J. C., & Stevens, S. S. (1963). Brightness function: Effects of adaptation. JOSA, 53(3), 375–385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Streit, M., Shockley, K., Morris, A. W., & Riley, M. A. (2007a). Rotational kinematics influence multimodal perception of heaviness. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(2), 363–367. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194078

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Streit, M., Shockley, K., & Riley, M. A. (2007b). Rotational inertia and multimodal heaviness perception. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(5), 1001–1006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, B. J., & Riley, M. A. (2014). Remembered affordances reflect the fundamentally action-relevant, context-specific nature of visual perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 40, 2361–2371.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, B. J., & Riley, M. A. (2015). The selection and usage of information for perceiving and remembering intended and unintended object properties. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41, 807–815.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, B. J., Wagman, J. B., Hawkins, M. M., Havens, M., & Riley, M. A. (2016). The independent perceptual calibration of action-neutral and -referential environmental properties. Perception, 46(5), 586–604.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Turvey, M. T., Shockley, K., & Carello, C. (1999). Affordance, proper function, and the physical basis of perceived heaviness. Cognition, 73(2), B17–B26.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wagman, J. B. (2019). A guided tour of Gibson’s theory of affordances. In J. B. Wagman & J. J. C. Blau (Eds.), Perception as information detection: Reflections on Gibson’s Ecological Approach to perception (pp. 233–247). Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Wagman, J. B., & Carello, C. (2003). Haptically creating affordances: The user-tool interface. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 9(3), 175–187.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wagman, J. B., & Shockley, K. (2011). Metamers for hammer-with-ability are not metamers for poke-with-ability. Ecological Psychology, 23(2), 76–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wagman, J. B., Thomas, B. J., McBride, D. M., & Day, B. M. (2013). Perception of maximum reaching height when the means of reaching are no longer in view. Ecological Psychology, 25, 63–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wagman, J. B., Caputo, S. E., & Stoffregen, T. A. (2016). Hierarchical nesting of affordances in a tool use task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 42(10), 1627–1642.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wagman, J. B., Cialdella, V. T., & Stoffregen, T. A. (2019a). Higher order affordances for reaching: Perception and performance. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72(5), 1200–1211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wagman, J. B., Thomas, B. J., & McBride, D. M. (2019b). Perceiving and remembering affordances for others are continuous processes. Experimental Psychology, 65(6), 385–392.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warren, W. H. (1984). Perceiving affordances: Visual guidance of stair-climbing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 10, 683–703.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Watt, S. J., & Bradshaw, M. F. (2003). The visual control of reaching and grasping: Binocular disparity and motion parallax. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 29(2), 404–415.

    Google Scholar 

  • Withagen, R., & Michaels, C. F. (2007). Transfer of calibration between length and sweet-spot perception by dynamic touch. Ecological Psychology, 19(1), 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhu, Q., & Bingham, G. P. (2010). Learning to perceive the affordance for long-distance throwing: Smart mechanism or function learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36(4), 862–875.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Open practices statement

The data and materials for all experiments are available (https://osf.io/r2qsd/).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Remembering, Acting, and Perceiving (RAP) Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, Whitewater, WI, USA

    Brandon J. Thomas, Sara Heiden, Kristen Dyson, Megan Bartz, Jennah Curtin & Vendela Zbotaniw

Authors
  1. Brandon J. Thomas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sara Heiden
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Kristen Dyson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Megan Bartz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Jennah Curtin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Vendela Zbotaniw
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brandon J. Thomas.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Statement of public significance

This study demonstrates the utility of quantitative tools from traditional psychophysical techniques for researchers to understand how organisms perceive and behave in the environment. These efforts could have implications as far-reaching as the design of medical equipment or the construction of more realistic virtual environments.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Thomas, B.J., Heiden, S., Dyson, K. et al. The psychophysics of affordance perception: Stevens’ power law scaling of perceived maximum forward reachability with an object. Atten Percept Psychophys 85, 2869–2878 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-023-02727-z

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-023-02727-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation