Perceiving Possibilities for Action: On the Necessity of Calibration and Perceptual Learning for the Visual Guidance of Action

Abstract

Tasks such as steering, braking, and intercepting moving objects constitute a class of behaviors, known as visually guided actions, which are typically carried out under continuous control on the basis of visual information. Several decades of research on visually guided action have resulted in an inventory of control laws that describe for each task how information about the sufficiency of one's current state is used to make ongoing adjustments. Although a considerable amount of important research has been generated within this framework, several aspects of these tasks that are essential for successful performance cannot be captured. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the existing framework, discuss its limitations, and introduce a new framework that emphasizes the necessity of calibration and perceptual learning. Within the proposed framework, successful human performance on these tasks is a matter of learning to detect and calibrate optical information about the boundaries that separate possible from impossible actions. This resolves a long-lasting incompatibility between theories of visually guided action and the concept of an affordance. The implications of adopting this framework for the design of experiments and models of visually guided action are discussed.

Effect of visuomotor calibration and uncertainty on the perception of peripersonal space

“…Although this remained unnoticed by the participants, this alteration of the movement-target correspondence may have been interpreted as an increased variability of the visuomotor system, leading to a conservative, yet unconscious, strategy affecting the visual perception of reachability (Fajen, 2005;Gabbard et al, 2006;Gabbard, Ammar, & Rodrigues, 2005). Some previous data support this interpretation by showing that increasing uncertainty in a sensorimotor task affects perceptual judgments of object properties (Ernst & Banks, 2002), as well as perceptual learning (Barthelmé & Mamassian, 2009;Shibata, Yamagishi, Ishii, & Kawato, 2009).…”

“…Since Berkeley's famous essay on vision (Berkeley, 1709(Berkeley, /1732), theorists of perception from different disciplines have defended the idea that the experience of spatiality may proceed from an interpretation of sensory information through reference to the possibilities of action (e.g., Bergson, 1896Bergson, /1912Gibson, 1979;Husserl, 1907Husserl, /1973Merleau-Ponty, 1945;Poincaré, 1907Poincaré, /1921. To date, convincing arguments in the empirical sciences have been provided supporting the view that the perception of the external world is under the influence of, or even scaled by, actionspecific constraints (Barsalou, 2008;Fajen, 2005;Gallese, 2007;Witt & Proffitt, 2008), when, for instance, walking through obstacles (Warren & Whang, 1987), climbing stairs or hills (Bhalla & Proffitt, 1999;Warren, 1984), or manually interacting with objects (Carello, Grosofsky, Reichel, Solomon, & Turvey, 1989;Witt, Proffitt, & Epstein, 2004).…”

“…The fact that reachability estimates are influenced by postural constraints has led to the suggestion that peripersonal space is perceived as a function of and in relation to anticipated action possibilities (Coello & Delevoye-Turrell, 2007;Costantini, Ambrosini, Tieri, Sinigaglia, & Committeri, 2010), elaborated from past experiences about the opportunities, effects, and costs of acting in the environment (Fajen, 2005;Previc, 1998;Proffitt, 2006). Evidence for the contribution of motor-related information in the perception of reachable space is supported mainly by the observation that the neural network involved in the perception of nearby objects (Caggiano, Fogassi, Rizzolatti, Their, & Casile, 2009;Gallivan, Cavina-Pratesi, & Culham, 2009;Grezes, Tucker, Armony, Ellis, & Passingham, 2003) or reachability judgments (Bartolo et al, 2009) includes brain areas that overlap with those recruited for actual motor planning and execution.…”

“…In the same vein, Witt and Proffitt (2008) proposed that motor simulation represents the mediator of action-specific influences on perception. According to this approach, internal motor simulation is thought to provide access to information about a person's ability to perform an intended action (Bidet-Ildei, Sparrow, & Coello, 2011;Fajen, 2005;Witt & Proffitt, 2005), to the anticipated outcome and the energetic costs associated with this particular action (Proffitt, 2006), and finally to the expected changes in the environment following action completion (Witt et al, 2004).…”

Towards a new ecological conception of perceptual information: Lessons from a developmental systems perspective

“…The central question in this program has been: "What specifying variable in the ambient array is used to perform a particular task?" (see Fajen, 2005, for a nice overview). Although the theory of direct perception has gained credibility over the past couple of decades or so, several empirical studies have revealed inadequacies in the concept of information as specification.…”