ABSTRACT
Traditionally, perception has been conceived of as a kind of a general purpose device, the task of which is to tell the mind something about the world outside, something that could be used by the subject in different ways in adopting him or herself to the environment. To a certain extent this is of course true. However, even when it comes to such a fundamental aspect as space, perception comes easier to some tasks than to others. Subjects can be trained to throw balls, horse shoes, or darts with great precision to places in the surrounding that require precise information about distance. When asked to estimate distances metrically the precision is much less impressive even after training (Gibson & Bergman, 1954; Gibson, Bergman & Purdy, 1955). Another example of how task-related perception can be has been given by Skravenski and Hansen (1978). They found that the inability to localize a target flashed during a saccade is not valid for all situations. If the subject, instead of being asked to verbally report the location of the target, is given the task to strike the target with a hammer this will be done with very little error.
