Journal
CURRENT BIOLOGY
Volume 18, Issue 22, Pages 1742-1747Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.09.042
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Funding
- Canadian Natural Science and Engineering Research Council
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Swedish Research Council [08667]
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The expectation that object weight increases with size guides the control of manipulatory actions [1-6] and also influences weight perception. Thus, the size-weight illusion, whereby people perceive the smaller of two equally weighted objects to be heavier, is thought to arise because weight is judged relative to expected weight that, for a given family of objects, increases with size [2, 7]. Here, we show that the fundamental expectation that weight increases with size can be altered by experience and neither is hard-wired nor becomes crystallized during development. We demonstrate that multiday practice in lifting a set of blocks whose color and texture are the same and whose weights vary inversely with volume gradually attenuates and ultimately inverts the size-weight illusion tested with similar blocks. We also show that in contrast to this gradual change in the size-weight illusion, the sensorimotor system rapidly learns to predict the inverted object weights, as revealed by lift forces. Thus, our results indicate that distinct adaptive size-weight maps, or priors, underlie weight predictions made in lifting objects and in judging their weights. We suggest that size-weight priors that influence weight perception change slowly because they are based on entire families of objects. Size-weight priors supporting action are more flexible, and adapt more rapidly, because they are tuned to specific objects and their current state.
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