In Gibson’s experiment, 
visual and touch perception are 
in direct conflict. If touch 
information were the ultimate 
source of how things appear 
visually, touch should be 
dominant. However, the results 
of later experiments were 
always the same as in Gibson’s 
observation. Not only did vision 
dominate, but the tactual 
"feel" of the object conformed 
to the visual "look" of it. Vision 
captured touch.

    In one experiment, for 
example, Jack Victor and I 
created a conflict of size 
between the two senses. The 
subject looked through a lens 
(without realizing it was a lens) 
at a square of a certain size. 
Using vision alone, subjects 
judged the square to be about 
one-half its true size (exactly 
what one would predict 
knowing the minification 
value of the lens). Using touch 
alone—–grasping the square 
without looking at it—–subjects 
judged the size more or less 
correctly, as they should have, 
since there was no distortion 
with respect to touch. But when 
looking and grasping 
simultaneously, subjects 
experienced the square to be 
half its size, corresponding to 
how they experienced it by 
vision alone. Moreover, the 
square felt to them as if it were 
half size. We did a similar 
experiment on shape. The 
result was the same: Visual 
capture of touch occurred.