Further evidence of perceptual independence (specificity) in dynamic touch

Previous investigations of dynamic touch have shown that when a bat or racket is wielded out of view, participants provide distinct reports of its length and its sweet spot, or center of percussion. The fact that these spatial perceptions both depend on the resistance of an object to rotational acceleration but in different ways implies that the two extents are perceived separately. Perceptual independence was tested formally through the complete identification experimental procedure using the statistical prescriptions of Ashby and Townsend (1986). The confirmed independence adds to the growing list of haptically perceived properties that can be accommodated within Gibson's generalized psychophysical or perception-information hypothesis, that is, without recourse to the interpretive coupling of one percept to another.