The middle of the road: Perceiving intermediates

•We investigate the perceptual structure of eight spatial dimensions.•Opposite spatial properties and in-between experiences are examined.•Response times, rating tasks, and classification tasks are used.•Intermediates are no more difficult to recognize and rate than poles.•Various types of intermediates emerge.

This article aims to study the extension and immediacy of the perception of intermediates during the observation of images showing a variation in a spatial property from one extreme (e.g. at the top of a mountain) to the opposite extreme (e.g. at the bottom of a mountain). Three experiments were carried out: rating tasks were used in studies 1 and 3 and a classification task in study 2.Three main results emerged. The first result (concerning extension) is that people consistently recognize some instances of a dimension as intermediates (neither a… nor b) rather than as one or the other opposite pole (a, b). The number of these cases ranges from one to most of the experiences in between the two extremes, depending on the type of opposite considered. The second result (concerning immediacy) is that recognizing and rating intermediates did not take longer in most cases than recognizing and rating the two poles. The third result (concerning task influence) is that there were differences due to the type of task, i.e. rating and classification. The implications of these results are discussed within the framework of theories grounding cognition in perception.