Baseball players who are hitting well proclaim that the ball looks as big as a grapefruit. Tennis players in the zone remark that the ball seems to move in slow motion. These examples, both of which have been confirmed in experiments as a psychological reality, suggest that what a person sees may not be the true, physical state of the world but rather can be biased by action. In the case of athletes, such misperceptions may be inherently interesting, but are unlikely to have a major impact on people's lives. In contrast, similar errors in perception by airplane pilots of runway size, drivers of car distances, or doctors of tumor size are quite concerning. Given the important role of vision in daily life and especially as it relates to safety, it is critical to understand the processes underlying this fundamental ability of the mind. The research project is designed to explore when and how people's visual perception is biased by action. In addition, the research project contributes to the education and training of several graduate students and dozens of undergraduate students. These students are also being trained on how to work alongside scientists with opposing views through a process known as adversarial collaboration. Although this kind of work presents its own challenges, the science is likely to benefit from such collaborations.

There are many important and nuanced ways that action could give rise to errors in perception. Airport runways could appear smaller when the airline pilot is not performing well, fatigued, or hungry, or when environmental conditions are poor such as high winds or strong rainfall. The research project examines the potential impact on vision of action-related effects due to 1) energetic demands of the task, 2) difficulty of the task, and 3) whether or not a task is even possible. In doing so, the research project will uncover the boundaries for which perception is prone to errors explicitly caused by action. The scientists conducting the research are considering the extent to which any effects are artifacts of the experimental setting, as opposed to genuine effects on perception that would impact how perceivers see the surrounding environment in the real world. This is a critical step for ensuring that the studied effects will have implications for daily life. Indeed, many of the experiments forgo traditional laboratory settings to explore how action influences perception in both real environments and in environments that simulate the real world using virtual reality.

Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2016-09-01
Budget End
2021-08-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2016
Total Cost
$354,603
Indirect Cost
Name
Colorado State University-Fort Collins
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Fort Collins
State
CO
Country
United States
Zip Code
80523