Muller-Lyer Visual Illusion

2515 Words11 Pages
The Muller-Lyer visual illusion: Dependency on the presence of “distance cues”? Abstract The assumption that distance cues are responsible for the functioning of the Muller-Lyer illusion was examined by presenting three conditions with varying degrees of ambiguity. Eighteen participants made up a mixed gender sample of university students who were presented with a Powerpoint presentation of 32 trials depicting the Muller-Lyer figure, Necker cube components and a combination of Muller-Lyer and Necker components. Participants were instructed to record where they perceived the figure to be divided. Single and repeated measure t-tests were produced using SPSS. Significant results supported the hypotheses that the figures made up of only Muller-Lyer components created the most illusion, the figures made up of only Necker components created no illusion and the combination figures resulted in an intermediate illusion. These results support the premise that the effect of distance cues as described by perspective constancy theory (Gregory, 1998) contribute to the experience of illusion. An illusion is something that is not real but appears so. An ambiguity is something static that is open to two or more different interpretations. It’s easy to think that illusions and ambiguities occur in our external environments but in actuality they only become real in our perception of them. In 1889 Franz Muller-Lyer formulated what is known as the Muller-Lyer illusion (cited in Schiffman, 1990). This illusion is commonly depicted as a horizontal line equally divided by angled arrowheads, each end also features an inward or outward facing angled arrowhead (DiGirolamo, McCarley, Kramer & Griffin, 2008). The illusion occurs, according to perspective-constancy theory, when the line divided by the arrowhead is identified as long or short based on the direction of the arrows. When

More about Muller-Lyer Visual Illusion

Open Document