Abstract
Previous studies have demonstrated that performing an action toward an object can impact the visual perceptual processing of that object. For instance, the congruence between hand movements and visual stimuli improves visual discrimination performance. In our recent work, to examine how easiness of action influences perceptual sensitivity, we asked participants to perform an orientation change detection task using a titled Gabor patch, while preparing a point-to-grasp movement towards it. We observed that when they grasped a right-titled patch with their dominant right hand, which was easier than grasping a left-titled one, orientation discrimination was better. Here, we extended this observation to when grasping was performed with the non-dominant hand. We also examined whether orientation discrimination sensitivity could be further enhanced with training of grasping precision. To address this question, we compared the orientation discrimination sensitivity before and after an action training session, in which participants were required to grasp various titled objects. We found that the magnitude of grasping accuracy improvement in the action training session was positively correlated with the improvement of the orientation discrimination. The effect, however, was not observed with perceptual training in the absence of action. In conclusion, we suggest that the easiness of action as well as training of action precision can influence the sensitivity of perceptual discrimination.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2017