Learning to perceive the relative mass of colliding balls: the effects of ratio scaling and feedback

The theory of direct perception holds that competent observers are able to detect optical patterns that specify the relative mass of colliding balls. Heuristic theorists, on the other hand, claim that judgments of relative mass are based on variables that do not specify relative mass. We contrasted these views with an experiment in which participants were given feedback on their ratio-scaled estimates of the relative mass of simulated colliding balls. Correlations between judged relative mass and various kinetic and kinematic measures of the collisions revealed that (1) judgments of relative mass become more accurate with feedback, (2) different observers use different variables, (3) during training, many observers change which variables they use, (4) before training, observers tend to use nonspecifying variables or combinations thereof, (5) after a minimal amount of training, at least some observers seem to detect mass-specifying information, and (6) the judgments do not support a generalization of the heuristic model of Gilden and Proffitt (1989, 1994). These findings suggest that direct perception of relative mass is a skill that can be developed through appropriate training.