Spatial context and visual perception for action

Résumé 0

"In this paper, evidences that visuo-spatial perception in the peri-personalspace is not an abstract, disembodied phenomenon but is rather shaped byaction constraints are reviewed. Locating a visual target with the intention ofreaching it requires that the relevant spatial information is considered inrelation with the body-part that will be used to perform the task. This entailsthe selection of body-scaled visual information in regard to an actiondependentsystem of reference. In this regard, experimental data are presentedwhich suggest that (1) what is visually perceived as reachable depends onanthropometrical and motor factors. (2) The location of what is visuallyreachable is defined according to body limbs, which serve as system ofreference in the specification of the spatial dimensions that characterise thereachable object. (3) The system of reference is specified from a combinationof visual and somatic information, what is accounted for by the notion of"allelocentric" system of reference. (4) The specification of the independentspatial dimensions determining the location of a visual object, i.e. distanceand direction, is based on visual signals of different nature.The function of vision is a question that has undoubtedly."