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01-09-2006 | Original Article

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

Auteur: John Predebon

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 5/2006

Abstract

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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The results of a supplementary condition, which was performed after the three conditions were completed, restricts the effective temporal limit to less than 20 s. There were 14 subjects none of whom had participated in Experiments 1, 2 and 3 or in the other three conditions of Experiment 4. Each stimulus presentation lasted 10 s, and the inter-trial interval was 20 s. The total duration of the test session was 270 s. Subjects thus made 10 judgments, one for every successive 30 s period. Neither the one-way ANOVA (F(9, 117) =0.95, p >0.05) nor any of the components in the trend analyses was significant indicating that illusion magnitude was constant across the 10 trials.

The major methodological difference between their experiments and the present investigation seem to be the procedure for presenting and measuring illusion magnitude (computer versus paper and pencil methods). These differences are unlikely to account for the inconsistent outcomes, however. Fifteen students, none of whom had participated in the experiments described earlier, were tested under conditions of intermittent-inspection similar to those of Experiment 3 excepting for the procedure, which duplicated Schiano and Jordan’s as closely as possible. Consistent with the results of Experiment 3, there was no evidence, either in the results of the ANOVA or the trend analyses, of a time-related change in illusion magnitude.

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Titel: Decrement of the Müller-Lyer and Poggendorff illusions: the effects of inspection and practice
Auteur: John Predebon
Publicatiedatum: 01-09-2006
Uitgeverij: Springer-Verlag
Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research / Uitgave 5/2006
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-005-0229-6

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