Abstract
When performing an action, our perception is focused towards object visual properties that enable us to execute the action successfully. However, the motor system is also able to influence perception, but only few studies reported evidence for hand action-induced visual perception modifications. Here, we aimed to study for a feature-specific perceptual modulation before and after a reaching and grasping action. Two groups of subjects were instructed to either grasp or reach to different sized bars and, before and after the action, to perform a size perceptual task by manual and verbal report. Each group was tested in two experimental conditions: no prior knowledge of action type, where subjects did not know the successive type of movement, and prior knowledge of action type, where they were aware about the successive type of movement. In both manual and verbal perceptual size responses, we found that after a grasping movement the size perception was significantly modified. Additionally, this modification was enhanced when the subjects knew in advance the type of movement to execute in the subsequent phase of task. These data suggest that the knowledge of action type and the execution of the action shape the perception of object properties.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2017