HAPTIC AND VISUAL MATCHES FOR HAPTICALLY PERCEIVED EXTENT ARE EQUIVALENT

Perception of the extent of hand-held rods was examined when the mode of exploration was dynamic touch and the mode of report was either a subsystem of the same mode (haptic touch) or a different mode (vision). Moment of inertia was manipulated by the position of an attached mass along the lengths of the rods. Results showed no difference between the report modes, with log of perceived length being a linear function of log of moment of inertia in both cases. This similarity between ipsemodal and cross-modal matches for perceived extent supports the generality of examinations of dynamic touch that use visual magnitude production (e.g., Solomon & Turvey, 1988; Solomon, Turvey, & Burton, 1989a, 1989b).