A method to assess the relative contribution of lateral inhibition to the magnitude of visual-geometric illusions

Abstract

Observer errors of judged length when viewing the Miiller-Lyer illusion arise partially from distortions caused by lateral neural interactions in the retina. To assess the relative contribution of such lateral neural interactions to the total magnitude of the illusion, the Miiller-Lyer figure was presented to observers under a form of intermittent-light stimulation that enhances lateral inhibitory activity. In Experiment 1, intermittent-light conditions produced the largest increase in illusion strength for the standard variant of the Miiller-Lyer figure but not for a dot form in which contour interactions are minimized. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the hypothesized lateral inhibitory contribution varied as a function of wing-shaft angle. In addition to confirming the contribution of lateral neural interactions to illusion formation, these findings also suggest that exposure of illusion configurations under intermittent illumination may provide a method of determining the relative contribution of lateral inhibition to illusion configurations other than the Miiller-Lyer.

Personality traits and perception of Müller-Lyer illusion in male Chinese military soldiers and university students

“…Military training in the open field is often connected with different environment conditions, which might assign more cortical adjustments in military men. This physiological-related postulation is in line with the lateral inhibition theory of illusion perception [6]. On the other hand, the LORC-EtoR-32 misperception magnitude was positively correlated with the Impulsive sensation seeking in military men, indicating that the lower Impulsive sensation seeking decreased the misperception magnitude of the illusion.…”

“…In this case, one half of the line with outward-pointing fins seems to be compressed whereas the other half with inward-pointing fins seems to be expanded (Figure 1). Some theories have been used to explain the misperceptions of the Müller-Lyer illusion, including strategic elements [5] and physiological mechanisms such as the lateral inhibition within the cortex [6], and optical blurring [7]. Coren additionally proposed an efferent theory to explain the illusion, which describes a motoric interaction of the response on visual impression in consciousness [8].…”

Classical Illusions from Parallel Line Figures: Evidence for Interactions among Length-Coding Neurons

“…Unlike the process of length coding described here, these other theories assert that physically present contour of the illusion figure acts via the visual system to distort the retinal or cortical image of the figure. One prominent example (Coren, Porac, Aks, & Morikawa, 1988;Coren, 1999) suggests that the retinal representations of the two wings in the Müller-Lyer figure generate neural interactions that distort their topography, particularly at the vertex of each angle, where a merger of contours occurs. This merger displaces the vertex into the body of the angle causing the judged line between the wings to be lengthened at each end when the wings point in and shortened when the wings point out.…”

Real-time Auditory Contrast Enhancement

“…In general, this process can be described as "the suppression of nervous activity at one place in a receptor field as a consequence of the stimulation of adjacent places in this field" [20]. Besides, for instance, the retina and the skin, such receptor fields are also found along the basilar membrane [21,22]. Kral and Majernik used an artificial neural network to model the effect of spectral contrast enhancement in the auditory system via lateral inhibition [18].…”