PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 6523761

Visual illusions without low spatial frequencies.

C R Carlson·J R Moeller·C H Anderson
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

It has been suggested that many geometrical illusions may be caused by the lower spatial frequencies in the Fourier spectra of these images. We have tested this hypothesis by constructing classical illusory figures out of a new dot stimulus, which is free of visible low spatial frequencies. In every case, not only does the illusion persist, but for the Müller-Lyer figures, which were measured quantitatively, the illusion magnitude is not significantly changed. We conclude that geometrical illusions are not primarily a consequence of low spatial frequencies in the illusory figures.

Explore related subjects

Form PerceptionHumansIllusionsModels, NeurologicalOptical IllusionsPattern Recognition, VisualJournal Article

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

C R Carlson, J R Moeller, C H Anderson. 1984. Visual illusions without low spatial frequencies.. https://doi.org/10.1016/0042-6989(84)90196-2

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed1995

Object representation by cores: identifying and representing primitive spatial regions.

We propose a model of the spatial visual processes underlying the identification and representation of the shape of primitive spatial regions. We propose that a region's boundaries are sensed at multiple scales by boundariness detectors that give graded responses, that stimulated boundariness detectors of similar scale, sigma, connect to one another across a distance that is proportional to their scale, and that they connect via cores, where a core encodes the middles and widths of the region and hence is a trace in (chi, gamma, sigma), i.e. 3-D scale space.

Form Perception↗
PubMed1995

Constraints on the processing of rolling motion: the curtate cycloid illusion.

When a wheel rolls along a flat surface, a point on its perimeter traces a cycloid trajectory, forming a sequence of adjacent semicircle-like scallops. However, when mentally visualizing this point's trajectory, participants erroneously describe the point's path as looping back on itself between each scallop or phase of the cycloid, a phenomenon called the curtate cycloid illusion. The studies supported the hypothesis that the curtate cycloid illusion occurs because the cognitive system sometimes does not have sufficient resources for simultaneously processing 2 components of the motion: its translation and its rotation about its current instant center. Four experiments using computer-animated rolling wheels found that participants who were high in spatial ability were less susceptible to the curtate cycloid illusion than were low-spatial participants, that high-spatial participants were not susceptible to the illusion if they could control the animated wheel display, and that the illusion was substantially decreased if the opportunity to compute instant centers was reduced.

Form Perception↗
PubMed1995

On-line evidence for elaborative logical inferences in text.

A model of propositional-logic reasoning proposed by M. D. S. Braine, B. J. Reiser, and B. Rumain (1984) claims that inferences such as "p or q; not p/therefore q" are made spontaneously by readers at the moment both premises are available. This claim is inconsistent with some evidence in the text-processing literature that suggests that only those inferences necessary for textual coherence are made spontaneously. In the present study, participants read stories in which a logical inference was not necessary to maintain textual coherence, and inference making was assessed with on-line probes. Two experiments tested logical forms central to Braine et al.'s model, and both indicated that participants were making the logical inferences. Two further experiments replicated this result with stories that did not begin with thematic titles. These findings support Braine et al.'s prediction that some propositional-logic inferences are made routinely in texts that do not require them for coherence.

Form Perception↗