The effect of tool length on distance compression to the pointed object

The purpose of present study was to examine whether the perceived distance is compressed to different extent according to the length of the tool in the object that is not reachable even when using the tool, and whether the perceived distance is compressed according to the tool length only in the object being pointed. In Experiment 1, we found by measuring the egocentric distance that the length of the tool causes the distance to the target to be closer to that of the object placed at a far distance. In Experiment 2, we found by measuring the egocentric distance that when the operated object and the non-operated object coexisted in the visual field, the length of the tool does not affect the distance perception to the non-pointed object. In Experiment 3, we found that the tool length affects only the distance perception of the operated object by measuring the exocentric distance which is the distance between the operated object and the target in the same environment as Experiment 2. The results of present experiment suggest that the compression of the perceived distance occurs at a distance that can not be reached by using the tool, and that the compression of the perceived distance is limited to the pointed object.