The Poggendorff Illusion: Consider All the Angles

In the Poggendorff display, which consists of parallel lines interrupting a transversal, one of the two transversal segments was replaced by a dot lying along the parallel. The angle between the remaining transversal segment and the parallels was varied in 15 degree increments, as was the orientation of the transversal with respect to the subject. Subjects set the dot to appear collinear with the transversal. Judgmental errors can be partitioned into additive components, one linearly related to the size of the obtuse angle between transversal and parallels and the other a sinusoidal function of transversal and parallels and the other a sinusoidal function of transversal orientation (collinearity settings err toward the horizontal or vertical, whichever is closer), plus a meridional effect, an interaction term that magnifies the errors of a given obtuse angle as the transversal approaches an oblique orientation.