Selective Looking and the Müller-Lyer Illusion: The Effect of Changes in the Focus of Attention on the Müller-Lyer Illusion

Goryo, Ken; Robinson, James O.; Wilson, J. A.

doi:10.1068/p130647

Cited by 30 publications

(25 citation statements)

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“…The mechanism underlying the attentional effect found here, and related effects found elsewhere (Goyro et al, 1984;Predebon, 2004), is unknown although visual scanning patterns is one possibility. Plausibly, the instruction to attend to the shaft induced a change in scanning behaviur in the direction of observers either their restricting their eye movements along the shaft or restricting the focus of their visual attention (Posner, 1978) onto the shaft.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…As was noted previously, observers' attentional set or viewing attitude (i.e., 'part-isolating' versus 'whole' attitude) can significantly alter illusion magnitudes (Di Nuovo, 1984;Gardner & Long, 1961;Goyro, Robinson, & Wilson, 1984;Predebon, 2004). It has been suggested (e.g., Predebon et al, 1993;Predebon, 1998; see also Lewis, 1908) that attentional set may promote the occurrence of illusion decrement, independently of other decrement-inducing factors.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 85%

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Decrement of the Müller-Lyer and Poggendorff illusions: the effects of inspection and practice

Predebon

2005

Psychological Research

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Five experiments assessed the decline or decrement in illusion magnitude for the wings-out form and the combined or Brentano form of the Müller-Lyer illusion, and for the Poggendorff illusion. Judgments were obtained under conditions of either continuous or intermittent inspection of the illusion figure. In the continuous-inspection conditions observers scanned the illusion figure during the inter-trial intervals whereas in the intermittent-inspection conditions they did not. Substantial illusion decrement was found in all continuous-inspection conditions and in intermittent conditions with short inter-trial intervals (upto 20 s) but not with longer inter-trial intervals. However, intermittent-inspection with a long inter-trial interval (40 s) produced illusion decrement but only when observers were instructed during the decrement session to ignore the wings, and pay attention to the shaft, of the Müller-Lyer figure. Taken together, the pattern of results does not support the claim that illusion decrement is primarily a product of practice or repeated trials.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 85%

Decrement of the Müller-Lyer and Poggendorff illusions: the effects of inspection and practice

Predebon

2005

Psychological Research

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“…This suggests an optimal fin/shaft ratio of 36%. Goryo, Robinson, and Wilson (1984) evaluated shaft lengths that varied from 90 to 110 mm (4.5-5.5 deg) and with fin/shaft ratios of 10%,25%, and 40%. For concave and convex configurations alike, they found the greatest distortion with a fin/shaft ratio of 40%.…”

Section: Key Variables For Metric Distortionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Goryo et al (1984) examined (among other variables) shaft lengths subtending 4.5, 5.0, and 5.5 deg of visual angle. Across the three values, they found that illusion error was an increasing function of shaft length for concave configurations and a decreasing function of length for convex.…”

Section: Prior Studies Of Stimulus Spanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Müller-Lyer effects using single fin-set configurations

Greene

Nelson

1997

Perception & Psychophysics

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Four experiments were conducted to study the bias of perceived length for Miiller-Lyer configurations that contained a single set offms (i.e. two segments that join to form a vertex). The experiments manipulated several factors that have been shown to be critical to the effect: (1) version (which way the apex pointed), (2) length of the stimulus span, (3) presence or absence of a line segment in the span being judged, (4) fin length, (5) fin angle, and (6) the zone in which the response was rendered. Using percent error as the index of perceptual distortion, the major fmding was that the two versions show an opposite slope for strength of effect as a function of span. When stimulus spans were plotted against response means (not converting to percent error), an almost perfect linear relation was found. These results indicate that the perceptual effects can be modeled as a linear system having two parameters through which the treatments exert their influence. The results are discussed in relation to major theories of mechanism for the Mtiller-Lyer illusion.Miiller-Lyer (1889) has provided us with one ofthe bestknown and most heavily investigated geometric illusions. His classic configurations are shown in Figure 1, along with a number of other versions. These variants clearly demonstrate that arrowheads, tail feathers, and related elements can distort the perceived length of line segments and distances in visual space itself. The diversity of alternative designs shows that the metric distortion does not pivot on a narrow stimulus characteristic. Substantial distortion is present when the arrowheads and tailfeathers are replaced by circles or when a single fin is used at each end of a shaft. Many investigators have shown that the effect survives deletion ofelements, with Greist-Bousquet and Schiffman (1981 b) providing what may be the ultimate demonstration of that fact. They eliminated the shaft, placed dots at the end of the span to be judged, and attached only a single fin to one of the dots. They were able to quantify a bias of perceived span, contraction when the fin was tilted to lie over the span to be judged and expansion when it was tilted away.Finding that one can get metric distortion with a reduced set of elements is of great importance for unraveling the nature of the Miiller-Lyer effect, both in identifying the most critical factors and in testing theories. Study ofa version that has fewer elements greatly simplifies the problem of experimental control, especially if the goal is to quantify the influence oflength, angle, or other characteristics of the configuration. One may wish to evaluate just This research was supported in part by the Neuropsychology Foundation, Los Angeles. The authors thank JozsefFiser for his help in modeling the data. Correspondence should be addressed to E. Greene, Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 (e-mail: egreene@bcf.usc.edu).a few different lengths of each component and, perhaps, fin angle. Even with a figure as simple as ...

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“…stimuli are viewed (see Coren & Girgus, 1978a, for a review). These strategies include confusion between the figural elements that contribute to the distortions (Coren & Girgus, 1972;Erlebacher & Sekuler, 1969), application of three-dimensional processing to two-dimensional arrays Gillam, 1971Gillam, , 1980Gregory, 1968;Ward, Porac, Coren, & Girgus, 1977;Warren & Bashford, 1977), averaging and/or contrast among figural elements (Coren & Miller, 1974;Girgus & Coren, 1982;Jordon & Uhlarik, 1986;Massaro & Anderson, 1971;Pressey, 1974;Restle & Decker, 1977), distribution of attention over the illusion figure (Coren & Porac, 1983;Goryo, Robinson, & Wilson, 1984), and implicit biases used to extract eye-movement information (Coren, 1986).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Coren

Porac

Aks

et al. 1988

Perception & Psychophysics

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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.

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Selective Looking and the Müller-Lyer Illusion: The Effect of Changes in the Focus of Attention on the Müller-Lyer Illusion

Cited by 30 publications

References 9 publications

Decrement of the Müller-Lyer and Poggendorff illusions: the effects of inspection and practice

Decrement of the Müller-Lyer and Poggendorff illusions: the effects of inspection and practice

Evaluating Müller-Lyer effects using single fin-set configurations

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

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