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Study 1: forward reach-with-ability for self/other and seated/standing vs length
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Description: The literatures on affordance perception and psychophysics are seminal in the basic study of perception and action. Nevertheless, the application of classic psychophysical methodologies to the study of affordance perception remains unexplored. In a novel series of experiments, we investigated the Steven’s 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) scaled under-sensitively to actual changes in reaching ability, compared to relatively more sensitive length reports (β = .73). Affordance perception scaled 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 as the merging of these literatures offers interesting insights about perception, action, and behavior.