The effectiveness of anchor characteristics on perceptual discrimination

Four experiments using stimuli which varied in size or texture investigated whether shifts in discrimination occurred when anchors and series stimuli were integral or nonintegral A total of 120 male and female college students judged series stimuli with respect to size. Anchors differed from the series stimuli in size or texture. The participants always observed the anchors visually. The E presented series stimuli either to the visual (intramodal) or haptic (crossmodal) sense. Analysis of variance revealed significant shifts in perceptual judgment for anchors presented both intra- and crossmodally but only when anchors and series stimuli dimensions were integral. Adaptation-level theory predicted significant shifts in judgment and properties associated with the dimensional structure of stimuli accounted for the limits of anchor effectiveness.