title: The perceptual homunculus: the perception of the relative proportions of the human body.
abstract: Given that observing one's body is ubiquitous in experience, it is natural to assume that people accurately perceive the relative sizes of their body parts. This assumption is mistaken. In a series of studies, we show that there are dramatic systematic distortions in the perception of bodily proportions, as assessed by visual estimation tasks, where participants were asked to compare the lengths of two body parts. These distortions are not evident when participants estimate the extent of a body part relative to a noncorporeal object or when asked to estimate noncorporal objects that are the same length as their body parts. Our results reveal a radical asymmetry in the perception of corporeal and noncorporeal relative size estimates. Our findings also suggest that people visually perceive the relative size of their body parts as a function of each part's relative tactile sensitivity and physical size.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Lancaster University.
authors.forename: Sally A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Linkenauger
authors.affiliation: Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen.
authors.forename: Hong Yu
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Utah.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Geuss
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Utah.
authors.forename: Jeanine K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Stefanucci
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Lancaster University.
authors.forename: Kathleen C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: McCulloch
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics.
authors.forename: Heinrich H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Bülthoff
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics.
authors.forename: Betty J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Mohler
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia.
authors.forename: Dennis R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Proffitt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image; D049628:Body Size; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010469:Perceptual Distortion; D012858:Size Perception; D014110:Touch; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult