Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 152):
Why does it give this impression? Partly no doubt because of the agnate form Are you pleased by those colours? where the Phenomenon those colours is brought in indirectly, like an instrument or means. But this is part of a larger syndrome whereby, on the one hand, there are are other related ‘sensing’ figures like How do those colours strike you?, where the verb strike suggests a fairly violent kind of action; and on the other hand the prototypical form of a ‘doing’ figure seems quite analogous to these, as in Were those boys hitting you? (with those boys as Actor, you as Goal).