Effects of Active Movement on Body-Part Size Estimates

Abstract

Body-part size estimates of 20 male Ss were obtained under normal room illumination and under three basic conditions: active movement of a joint-bounded body part prior to making an estimate of that part, active movement of a different body part prior to making an estimate of joint-bounded and non-joint-bounded body parts as well as familiar non-body objects, and no movement prior to making an estimate of joint-bounded and non-joint-bounded body parts as well as non-body objects. The results did not support the hypotheses that induced muscular tension or increased attention to the estimating task creates an enhancing effect upon size judgments from pictorial memory of body or non-body stimuli. Other findings, such as overestimation of the head width and variability in estimation of the waist, were consistent with previous studies.