Colour-temperature correspondences: when reactions to thermal stimuli are influenced by colour.

In our daily lives, information concerning temperature is often provided by means of colour cues, with red typically being associated with warm/hot, and blue with cold. While such correspondences have been known about for many years, they have primarily been studied using subjective report measures. Here we examined this correspondence using two more objective response measures.

Touch can be as accurate as passively-guided kinaesthesis in length perception.

Two experiments were designed to investigate the contribution of touch and kinaesthesis to haptic perception of the length of raised lines. Experiment 1 showed that judgements based on kinaesthetic information were not more accurate than those based on cutaneous information. Instead, kinaesthetic and cutaneous inputs appear to be weighted almost equally in the haptic percept, with haptic performance more closely approximated by cutaneous performance than by kinaesthetic.

Capture of kinesthesis by a competing cutaneous input.

In four experiments, blindfolded participants were presented with pairs of stimuli simultaneously, one to each index finger. Participants moved one index finger, which was presented with cutaneous and/or kinesthetic stimuli, and this movement caused a raised line to move underneath the other, stationary index finger in a yoked manner. The stimuli were 180º rotations of each other (e.

Visual and haptic influence on perception of stimulus size.

In six experiments, subjects judged the sizes of squares that were presented visually and/or haptically, in unimodal or bimodal conditions. We were interested in which mode most affected size judgments in the bimodal condition when the squares presented to each mode actually differed in size. Three factors varied: whether haptic exploration was passive or active, whether the choice set from which the subjects selected their responses was visual or haptic, and whether cutaneous information was provided in addition to kinesthetic information.

Active and passive movements give rise to different judgments of coldness.

When the right index fingertip of twelve subjects was moved across a cold (15 degrees C) tile by a machine (passive-guided condition), the subjects rated the temperature of the tile as being colder than when they moved the finger across the stimulus themselves (active condition). Results confirmed that active movements were associated with an attenuation of 'coldness'. When these findings are considered alongside those of earlier experiments (see VanDoorn et al, 2005 Perception 34 231 236), it may be concluded that intentionality of movement plays some role in this attenuation.

Modification of magnitude estimations in thermotactile perception during self-generated and externally generated movements.

Fourteen participants felt a 'cold' stimulus move across a fingertip. When movement was self-controlled, the stimulus was reported as feeling less 'cold' than when movement was externally generated.