This is an exciting study for me as it is my first research publication and also the lab’s first registered report.
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The study investigates how expectations can influence perception of heaviness. In the well-known size-weight illusion, small objects feel heavier than large objects of equal mass, due to a contrast between expectations and sensory information.
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The SWI is thought to be driven by a combination of these top-down and bottom-up influences. Interestingly, manipulations of higher-level cues, such as material or identity, can induce illusory weight differences solely driven by cognitive priors derived from the cues.
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As it is still unclear the level at which a cue must be to influence perceptions of heaviness, this study investigated whether semantic cues (i.e. labels) were sufficient to induce a novel weight illusion.
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Labels are often used to signal heaviness, and so their effect on both perception of heaviness and sensorimotor prediction was explored. We expected that objects labelled ‘light’ would feel heavier, and be gripped and lifted with more force, than the objects labelled as ‘heavy’.pic.twitter.com/SvGlBbJNqv
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Participants lifted and rated the heaviness of 2 pairs of objects: the objects in each pair were identical except one was labelled ‘light’ and the other ‘heavy’. A force transducer was attached to the object on each trail, to measure peak grip force and load force rate.pic.twitter.com/Us2lsgR2MF
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Each object was lifted 10 times in a pseudo-random order. The first two lifts for each participant were always a ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ object from the same pair, to understand sensorimotor prediction on the first interaction.
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Prior to lifting, participants reported the expected heaviness of each object. They then lifted each object multiple times in a randomised order, and reported the felt heaviness of the object using an unconstrained numerical rating on each trial (normalised to a z distribution).pic.twitter.com/H4meLKCk3B
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These labels did affect prior expectations of heaviness, with participants reporting an expectation for the objects labelled as ‘heavy’ to feel heavier before they picked them up. However, this had no impact on the subsequent experience of heaviness when the object was lifted.pic.twitter.com/jJlW8uYjPM
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Similarly, the labels had no effect on the fingertip force rates used to lift the objects on the initial trial (so-called ‘sensorimotor prediction’) – both peak grip force rate and load force rate on the initial lifts were disassociated from conscious prior expectations.pic.twitter.com/proqumlNko
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We found no evidence for an influence of semantic cues of perception of heaviness or sensorimotor prediction.
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However, many previous studies have found that higher-level expectations can shape heaviness perception. This highlights the segregated nature of different ‘higher-level’ expectations types, and the vagueness of the term.
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The fact that conscious prior expectations were affected by the labels suggests that explicit expectations were derived from the labels. This aligns with recent research that suggests higher-level cues create explicit expectations, where-as size cues create implicit expectations.
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These size cues usually dominate other cues when the cues produce conflicting information. It may be that in this study, the equal-size cues created implicit expectations that dominated the weaker explicit expectations created from the labels.
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Another important finding is that initial interactions with the objects were not driven by conscious prior expectations. This questions the effectiveness of labels as a tool to inform object interactions, and as a warning for heaviness to help people avoid injury in the workplace
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It may be useful to repeat the study in a real-world context, using objects that are meaningful/have consequences, e.g. a fragile object. Also, could investigate various types of high-level cues to understand how they can each have a varied influence on heaviness perception.
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