Effect of Modality-Specific Experience on Visual and Haptic Judgment of Orientation

Although the ‘oblique effect’ (poorer performance on oblique orientations as compared to performance on vertical and horizontal orientations) is generally understood as a strictly visual phenomenon, a haptic oblique effect occurs for blindfolded subjects required to set a stimulus rod by hand. Because oblique effects are often attributed to the observer's experience with a predominantly horizontal and vertical environment, we assessed the effect of visual and haptic experience by providing subjects with modality-specific inspection periods to familiarize them with the more poorly judged obliques. Oblique error was significantly reduced in magnitude for judgments made by the modality of experience, and for judgments made across modalities. Rate of improvement, consistency of transfer, and the subjective reports of subjects indicate that this haptic oblique effect is more strongly influenced by visual experience and imagery than by haptic experience. It need not be interpreted as an effect based on factors intrinsic to the haptic modality.