The costs of cooperation: action-specific perception in the context of joint action

A growing empirical literature has demonstrated that perceptions of the physical environment are influenced by the perceiver's behavioral ability. However, prior research has focused only on the perceptual consequences of individual behavior, despite the fact that individuals regularly take part in cooperative social interaction. To test whether similar effects occur as a result of engaging in joint action, we asked participants to estimate anticipated walking distance to a target location when expecting to carry a heavy object either alone or jointly with a confederate. Surprisingly, even though carrying with another person requires less physical effort, on certain carrying tasks participants estimated distances to be farther when expecting help. However, this effect was reversed when participants were asked to focus on the difficulty of the task or told about the alternative experimental condition, thereby making salient for joint carriers the potential, presumably negative, counterfactual of having to work alone. Findings are explained in terms of an ecological approach, which conceptualizes perception as the detection of information specifying affordances. These results highlight the limitations of purely effortful accounts of such phenomena and demonstrate the unique way in which social factors relevant to coordination can alter how people relate to their physical environments.