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. 2008 Jun;15(3):581-5.
doi: 10.3758/pbr.15.3.581.

Putting to a bigger hole: golf performance relates to perceived size

Jessica K Witt  1 , Sally A Linkenauger, Jonathan Z Bakdash, Dennis R Proffitt
Affiliations

Putting to a bigger hole: golf performance relates to perceived size

Jessica K Witt et al. Psychon Bull Rev. 2008 Jun.

Abstract

When people are engaged in a skilled behavior, such as occurs in sports, their perceptions relate optical information to their performance. In the present research, we demonstrate the effects of performance on size perception in golfers. We found that golfers who played better judged the hole to be bigger than did golfers who did not play as well. In follow-up laboratory experiments, participants putted on a golf mat from a location near or far from the hole and then judged the size of the hole. Participants who putted from the near location perceived the hole to be bigger than did participants who putted from the far location. Our results demonstrate that perception is influenced by the perceiver's current ability to act effectively in the environment.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Apparent size of a golf hole as a function of score on the course that day. Each circle represents 1 or more participants’ data. The circles on the y-axis are drawn to preserve relative size of the stimuli. The solid line is the correlation between course score and the circle selected as best matching the size of the hole.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Apparent size of the golf hole in the putting mat by condition in Study 2 as measured by drawing circles in Microsoft Paint. Actual size of the hole was 9.52 cm in diameter. Participants did not have vision of the hole when making their estimates. Error bars represent one standard error of the mean.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Perceived size of the golf hole in the putting mat by condition in Study 3 as measured by drawing circles in Microsoft Paint. Actual size of the hole was 9.52 cm in diameter. Participants had vision of the hole when making their estimates. Error bars represent one standard error of the mean.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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