title: Body-scaled affordances in sensory substitution.
abstract: The research field on sensory substitution devices has strong implications for theoretical work on perceptual consciousness. One of these implications concerns the extent to which the devices allow distal attribution. The present study applies a classic empirical approach on the perception of affordances to the field of sensory substitution. The reported experiment considers the perception of the stair-climbing affordance. Participants judged the climbability of steps apprehended through a vibrotactile sensory substitution device. If measured with standard metric units, climbability judgments of tall and short participants differed, but if measured in units of leg length, judgments did not differ. These results are similar to paradigmatic results in regular visual perception. We conclude that our sensory substitution device allows the perception of affordances. More generally, we argue that the theory of affordances may enrich theoretical debates concerning sensory substitution to a larger extent than has hitherto been the case.
authors.affiliation: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: david.travieso@uam.es.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Travieso
authors.affiliation: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gómez-Jordana
authors.affiliation: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Díaz
authors.affiliation: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Lorena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lobo
authors.affiliation: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Jacobs
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001827:Body Height; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D012858:Size Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Affordances; Distal attribution; Ecological psychology; Haptics; Sensorimotor contingencies; Sensory substitution