Our Hands 'Shape' Our Perception Of The World Around Us

The size of our bodies help us measure our perception of the world around us; this is especially true when it comes to our hands. As a matter of fact, you might say that we use our dominant hand as an effective metric to measure "our" world in motion.

Now, recent findings published in the journal Psychological Science lend support to the idea that we use our hand a perpetual "ruler" to measure the outside environment.

"These findings suggest that our bodies are used as perceptual metrics, meaning that we are more likely to attribute changes in the perceived size of the hand to changes in the world - instead of thinking that our hand has become bigger, we're more likely to think that the world around the hand has become smaller instead," said psychological scientist and lead researcher Sally Linkenauger of Lancaster University, in a news release.

For the study, researchers conducted five experiments in which participants viewed their dominant hand and other items under 18 percent magnification. Throughout the experiment, researchers noted that the participants consistently estimated their dominant hand to be less magnified than the other items.

"In most cases, individuals knew that their dominant hand was under the same degree of magnification as another's hands, feet, and objects, yet they persisted to report that what they experience was a smaller degree of magnification for their dominant hand," added Linkenauger. "Individuals typically like to be consistent and 'right,' but this effect seemed to override those affectations."

With future studies, researchers said they hope to better investigate whether hand size constancy also applies to virtual environments in which individuals have an animated virtual hand.