The effect of experience on the perception of affordances for aperture crossing in cycling.

To ride successfully and safely, cyclists must perceive and act on the affordances that are available in a given situation. This study investigated whether experience in perceiving and acting with respect to a person-plus-object system would influence whether and how a person choses to cross an aperture of different widths, especially in relation to their maximal action capabilities. We also explore whether the distribution of action modes reflects this effect. We examined the performance (i.e., the probability of successfully crossing the aperture) and the decision (i.e., the probability of attempting to cross the aperture) of 8 experienced cyclists and 16 occasional cyclists in an aperture crossing task. In term of performance, experienced cyclists demonstrated greater ability to cross narrower apertures than occasional cyclists, but there were no such differences when aperture width was scaled to maximal action capabilities. In term of decision, both experienced and occasional cyclists tended to over-estimate their abilities, but the experienced cyclists did so to a greater extent. Our findings indicate that experience improves the ability to perform more complex tasks due to utilizing a wider repertoire of actions, but not necessarily the ability to perceive and actualize (action-scaled) affordances. • Cycling experience enhances absolute performance in aperture crossing, but that such performance is calibrated in the same way according to the individual's maximal action capability. • Experienced and occasional cyclists overestimate their abilities to cross. • Experienced cyclists were able to shift from crossing from the face to turning the handlebars when necessary. • Cycling intervention should promote exploratory behaviour to improve the pick-up of relevant perceptual variables and movement patterns to expand the behavioural repertoire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]