Transfer of competency in a perceptual task often depends on shared information between anatomically different perceptual subsystems. The problem of studying transfer involves isolating conditions of similarity and then trying to account for any resulting differences in transfer. To respect this twofold aspect, this article takes a twopronged approach to transfer in dynamic touch. The present research first tests the hypothesis that functional equivalence supports the transfer of dynamic touch. Participants were trained to wield unseen objects with the hand or foot and were then tested on anatomically disparate limbs (i.e., the foot or hand, respectively). Next, we examined motion capture of these wielding behaviors for predictors of any asymmetry in transfer. Temporally fractal fluctuations of exploratory behavior can modulate information detection, and we tested whether the fractality of wielding might predict asymmetries in transfer across disparate limbs. Results suggest that transfer of training to anatomically disparate limbs respects functional conditions of similarity and also that the degree of temporally fractal fluctuations predicted limb differences in transfer.
Historically, the bodily senses have often been regarded as impeccable sources of spatial information and as being the teacher of vision. Here, the authors report that the haptic perception of slope by means of the foot is greatly exaggerated. The exaggeration is present in verbal as well as proprioceptive judgments. It is shown that this misperception of pedal slope is not caused by calibration to the well-established visual misperception of slope because it is present in congenitally blind individuals as well. The pedal misperception of slope is contrasted with the perception of slope by dynamic touch with a finger in a force-feedback device. Although slopes feel slightly exaggerated even when explored by finger, they tend to show much less exaggeration than when equivalent slopes are stood on. The results are discussed in terms of a theory of coding efficiency.
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