Effect of practice versus information on the visual illusion

Abstract

Objective The Müller-Lyer illusion is a visual illusion in which a horizontal shaft with an inward-pointing chevron (fins-out) affixed to each end is perceived longer than a shaft with outward-pointing chevrons (fins-in). The goal of this study was to compare the effects of experience and knowledge about the Müller-Lyer illusion on participants' perceptual precision. Method Participants were undergraduate students (n = 108) who were not familiar with the Müller-Lyer illusion prior to the experiment. The task of participants was to adjust one movable line to make it equal to the other in Müller-Lyer figure. They received ascending and descending Müller-Lyer trials in three blocks with 20 trials each. The Experimental Group received information about the Müller-Lyer illusion prior to the third block. Results For the Experimental Group, the amount of departure in Block 3 was reduced significantly compared with previous blocks. Conclusion Knowledge about the mechanisms underlying visual illusions may play an important role in helping individuals overcome them.

Dependent mechanism of Chinese prepositions processing in the brain: evidence from event-related potentials

“…The instructions for the task were given orally [14] . A practice trial was given at the beginning of the first block of stimuli [15] .…”

Determining Whether a Patient is Feeling Better: Pitfalls from the Science of Human Perception

“…Training with up to 200 repetitions can attenuate the degree of misperception, albeit with some residual inaccuracy [58][59][60] . Interestingly, a combination of raised awareness with further practice can sometimes lead to greater accuracy 61 .…”

Why do non-artists draw the eyes too far up the head? How vertical eye-drawing errors relate to schematic knowledge, pseudoneglect, and context-based perceptual biases.

“…Second, if we find that the perceptual processing of the hair line affects eye-drawing performance, it remains open to question as to whether this perceptual-based drawing bias to draw the eyes too far up the head is mediated by the knowledge or lack thereof that the eyes are positioned half-way down the head. Previous research has demonstrated that explicit knowledge about the veridical properties of a stimulus can have the effect of reducing the magnitude of individuals’ experience of perceptual illusions (e.g., Khorasani, Fadardi, Fadardi, Cox, & Sharif, 2007). Thus, another goal of the present study was to investigate whether the potential effect that the presence versus absence of hair has on vertical eye-drawing accuracy differs between individuals with and without accurate schematic knowledge pertaining to the spatial positioning of the eyes.…”