title: Evidence for hand-size constancy: the dominant hand as a natural perceptual metric.
abstract: The hand is a reliable and ecologically useful perceptual ruler that can be used to scale the sizes of close, manipulatable objects in the world in a manner similar to the way in which eye height is used to scale the heights of objects on the ground plane. Certain objects are perceived proportionally to the size of the hand, and as a result, changes in the relationship between the sizes of objects in the world and the size of the hand are attributed to changes in object size rather than hand size. To illustrate this notion, we provide evidence from several experiments showing that people perceive their dominant hand as less magnified than other body parts or objects when these items are subjected to the same degree of magnification. These findings suggest that the hand is perceived as having a more constant size and, consequently, can serve as a reliable metric with which to measure objects of commensurate size.
authors.affiliation: Lancaster University s.linkenauger@lancaster.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Sally A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Linkenauger
authors.affiliation: University of Utah.
authors.forename: Michael N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Geuss
authors.affiliation: University of Utah.
authors.forename: Jeanine K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Stefanucci
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leyrer
authors.affiliation: University of Central Lancaster.
authors.forename: Beth H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.affiliation: University of Virginia.
authors.forename: Dennis R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Proffitt
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany Korea University.
authors.forename: Heinrich H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Bülthoff
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Betty J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Mohler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004215:Distance Perception; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012858:Size Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: human body; visual perception