Moving further moves things further away in visual perception: position-based movement planning affects distance judgments.

We examined how different characteristics of planned hand movements affect visual perception of distances in reachable space. Participants planned hand movements of certain amplitude. Before execution of the movement, certain visual distances had to be judged. Distances were judged as larger the larger the amplitude of the concurrently prepared hand movements was. On top of that, with constant movement amplitude, distances were judged as larger, the further away the start point of the planned movement was located from the body. These results indicate that distinct variables specified during motor planning, such as effector's final position, are linked to the visual perception of environmental characteristics.