Individualistic weight perception from motion on a slope

Perception of an object’s weight is linked to its form and motion. Studies have shown the relationship between weight perception and motion in horizontal and vertical environments to be universally identical across subjects during passive observation. Here we show a contradicting finding in that not all humans share the same motion-weight pairing. A virtual environment where participants control the steepness of a slope was used to investigate the relationship between sliding motion and weight perception. Our findings showed that distinct, albeit subjective, motion-weight relationships in perception could be identified for slope environments. These individualistic perceptions were found when changes in environmental parameters governing motion were introduced, specifically inclination and surface texture. Differences in environmental parameters, combined with individual factors such as experience, affected participants’ weight perception. This phenomenon may offer evidence of the central nervous system’s ability to choose and combine internal models based on information from the sensory system. The results also point toward the possibility of controlling human perception by presenting strong sensory cues to manipulate the mechanisms managing internal models.