Perceived Arm Posture and Remote Haptic Perception of Whether an Object Can Be Stepped Over

ABSTRACT. The authors investigated whether the perceived pos-ture of the arm plus a hand-held object influences remote haptic perception of whether an object can be stepped over. Blindfolded participants (N = 20) determined whether they could step over bars at different heights by exploring the bars with a T-shaped rod. The rod was weighted so that the perceived posture of the arm-plus-rod was shifted up, down, or left unchanged. Both the leg length of the participant and the perceived posture of the arm-plus-rod system-atically influenced perception of whether the bar could be stepped over. The results highlight the role of perceived posture of the arm-plus-rod in remote haptic perception and have potential implica-tions for the design of navigation aids for the visually impaired. Key words: affordances, haptic perception, locomotion, posture emote haptic perception is the ability to perceive prop-erties of a surface by exploring that surface with