Volume Estimation Through Mental Simulation

Although mental simulation underlies many day-to-day judgments, we identified a new domain influenced by simulation: volume estimation. Previous research has identified various ways in which volume estimates are biased but typically has not presented a psychological process by which such judgments are made. Our simulation-informs-perception account proposes that people often estimate a container’s size by simulating filling it. First, this produces an orientation effect: The same container is judged larger when right side up than when upside down because of the greater ease of imagining filling an upright container. Second, we identified a cavern effect: Imagining pouring water through a narrow opening toward a relatively wide base produces a sense that the container is cavernous and large (compared with identically sized, wide-topped, narrow-based containers). By testing for and demonstrating the importance of simulation to these effects, we showed how complex perceptual judgments can be distorted by hig...