Cody Honours Study

The size-weight illusion (SWI) pertains to theexperience of perceiving the smaller of two equally weighted objects asheavier. Competing theories to explain the illusion can be generally groupedinto cognitive and sensory theories,which place more importance on top-down processing of cognitive expectations andbottom-up processing of sensory information about the size and weight ofobjects, respectively. The current study examined the relative contribution ofthese two general explanations. This was done by varying the amounts ofcognitive load in a dual-task and the quality of somatosensory feedback by wearingor not wearing gloves.