The Effect of the Müller-Lyer Illusion on Saccades is Modulated by Spatial Predictability and Saccadic Latency

Overview

Journal Exp Brain Res

Specialty Neurology

Date 2010 May 11

PMID 20454958

Citations 4

Authors

Denise D J de Grave

Nicola Bruno

Affiliations

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Abstract

Studies investigating the effect of visual illusions on saccadic eye movements have provided a wide variety of results. In this study, we test three factors that might explain this variability: the spatial predictability of the stimulus, the duration of the stimulus and the latency of the saccades. Participants made a saccade from one end of a Müller-Lyer figure to the other end. By changing the spatial predictability of the stimulus, we find that the illusion has a clear effect on saccades (16%) when the stimulus is at a highly predictable location. Even stronger effects of the illusion are found when the stimulus location becomes more unpredictable (19-23%). Conversely, manipulating the duration of the stimulus fails to reveal a clear difference in illusion effect. Finally, by computing the illusion effect for different saccadic latencies, we find a maximum illusion effect (about 30%) for very short latencies, which decreases by 7% with every 100 ms latency increase. We conclude that spatial predictability of the stimulus and saccadic latency influences the effect of the Müller-Lyer illusion on saccades.

Citing Articles

Adaptation to size affects saccades with long but not short latencies.

Zimmermann E, Morrone M, Burr D J Vis. 2016; 16(7):2.

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Susceptibility to Optical Illusions Varies as a Function of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient but not in Ways Predicted by Local-Global Biases.

Chouinard P, Unwin K, Landry O, Sperandio I J Autism Dev Disord. 2016; 46(6):2224-2239.

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Fooling the eyes: the influence of a sound-induced visual motion illusion on eye movements.

Fracasso A, Targher S, Zampini M, Melcher D PLoS One. 2013; 8(4):e62131.

PMID: 23637981 PMC: 3637444. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0062131.

Is mislocalization during saccades related to the position of the saccade target within the image or to the gaze position at the end of the saccade?.

Matziridi M, Brenner E, Smeets J PLoS One. 2013; 8(4):e62436.

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