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The continuous end-state comfort effect: weighted integration of multiple biases

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Abstract

The grasp orientation when grasping an object is frequently aligned in anticipation of the intended rotation of the object (end-state comfort effect). We analyzed grasp orientation selection in a continuous task to determine the mechanisms underlying the end-state comfort effect. Participants had to grasp a box by a circular handle—which allowed for arbitrary grasp orientations—and then had to rotate the box by various angles. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed both that the rotation’s direction considerably determined grasp orientations and that end-postures varied considerably. Experiments 3 and 4 further showed that visual stimuli and initial arm postures biased grasp orientations if the intended rotation could be easily achieved. The data show that end-state comfort but also other factors determine grasp orientation selection. A simple mechanism that integrates multiple weighted biases can account for the data.

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Notes

  1. With the term “anticipatory grasp orientations”, we refer to grasp orientations that have an anticipatory component.

  2. The rotation angle can assume both positive and negative values

  3. The effect of the context is unlikely to be cancelled out by the different ratios of women and men participating in Experiments 1 and 2 (c.f. Fischman 1998), because similar results are obtained if only women are included in the analysis (for all interactions p > 0.23).

  4. Grasp selection may be biased by optical illusions (Crajé et al. 2008). However, here we did not want to create an illusion that distorted the perceived orientation of the object that was to be grasped, but wanted to suggest a certain way of grasping and turning the box to the participants.

  5. Note that we only included the arrow start position left and right because they are the conditions that can be interpreted most easily.

  6. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this explanation.

  7. We used the matlab function fminsearchbnd (http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/8277-fminsearchbnd) to determine values that result in the smallest root mean square error for each participant. We constrained the values of p anti,cw, p anti,ccw, and p const to [−200°,200°]. As each participant provided only three data points in Experiment 2, the model, which has four free parameters in the case of Experiment 2, fits the data trivially (R 2 = 1.0).

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge funding from the Emmy Noether program of the German Research Foundation (grant BU1335/3-1), thank Georg Schüssler for technical support, and thank David Rosenbaum and John Buchanan for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Röntgenring 11, 97070, Würzburg, Germany

    Oliver Herbort & Martin V. Butz

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  1. Oliver Herbort
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Correspondence to Oliver Herbort.

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Herbort, O., Butz, M.V. The continuous end-state comfort effect: weighted integration of multiple biases. Psychological Research 76, 345–363 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-011-0334-7

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