title: Cognitive salience of haptic object properties: role of modality-encoding bias.
abstract: The influence of modality-encoding bias on the relative importance ('cognitive salience') of object shape, size, and material, with the last determined by weight and thermal variations, was examined. Experiment 1 confirmed that for these stimulus objects all five properties were very accessible haptically, as measured by the time to identify the property level of each designated property; however, observers were still generally faster for geometric than material properties. In experiment 2, the influence of modality-encoding bias on cognitive salience was assessed by using a task involving free sorting by similarity. As predicted, modality-encoding bias strongly influenced cognitive salience. Observers favoured sorting by material under haptic- bias instructions, and three-dimensional geometric properties (especially shape) under visual-bias instructions. Videotaped hand movements indicated that modality-encoding biases reflect long-term knowledge of the relative speed and precision of manual exploration patterns, rather than exploration of the current set of objects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Lederman@pavlov.psyc.queensu.ca
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Lederman
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Summers
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Klatzky
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003071:Cognition; D003463:Cues; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D019563:Mechanics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012858:Size Perception; D013236:Stereognosis; D013696:Temperature