The haptic Muller-Lyer illusion in sighted and blind people

Morton A. Heller, Deneen D. Brackett, Kathy Wilson, Keiko Yoneyama, Amanda Boyer, Heather Steffen

Producción científicarevisión exhaustiva

Resumen

We examined the effect of visual experience on the haptic Mu« ller-Lyer illusion. Subjects made size estimates of raised lines by using a sliding haptic ruler. Independent groups of blind- folded-sighted, late-blind, congenitally blind, and low-vision subjects judged the sizes of wings-in and wings-out stimuli, plain lines, and lines with short vertical ends. An illusion was found, since the wings-in stimuli were judged as shorter than the wings-out patterns and all of the other stimuli. Subjects generally underestimated the lengths of lines. In a second experiment we found a nonsignificant difference between length judgments of raised lines as opposed to smooth wooden dowels. The strength of the haptic illusion depends upon the angles of the wings, with a much stronger illusion for more acute angles. The effect of visual status was nonsignificant, suggesting that spatial distortion in the haptic Mu« ller-Lyer illusion does not depend upon visual imagery or visual experience.

Idioma originalAmerican English
PublicaciónPerception
Volumen31
EstadoPublished - 2002

Disciplines

  • Psychology

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