Illusion Research Articles

Cognitive Biases, Risk Perception, and Risky Driving Behaviour

This study evaluated the relationship between drivers’ cognitive biases (i.e., optimism bias, illusion of control) and risky driving behaviour. It also investigated the mediational role of risk perception in the relationship between cognitive biases and self-reported risky driving. The sample included 366 drivers (Mage = 39.13, SD = 13.63 years) who completed scales measuring optimism bias, illusion of control, risk perception, and risky driving behaviour, as well as demographic information. The results showed that risky driving behaviour was negatively predicted by optimism bias and positively predicted by the illusion of control. Further, risk perception negatively correlated with risky behaviour and also mediated the relation between both optimism bias and illusion of control with risky driving. The practical implications of these results for traffic safety and future research are discussed.

Perceptual illusion of body-ownership within an immersive realistic environment enhances memory accuracy and re-experiencing

SummaryOur bodies provide a necessary scaffold for memories of past events. Yet, we are just beginning to understand how feelings of one's own body during the encoding of realistic events shape memory. Participants formed memories for immersive, lifelike events by watching pre-recorded 3D videos that involved a first-person view of a mannequin's body through head mounted displays. We manipulated feelings of body ownership over the mannequin using a perceptual full-body illusion. Participants completed cued recall questions and subjective ratings (i.e., degree of reliving, emotional intensity, vividness, and belief in memory accuracy) for each video immediately following encoding and one week later. Sensing the mannequin's body as one's own during encoding enhanced the following factors: memory accuracy across testing points, immediate reliving, delayed emotional intensity, vividness, and belief in memory accuracy. These findings demonstrate that a basic sense of bodily selfhood provides a crucial foundation for the accurate reliving of the past.

Predictive Processing and Some Disillusions about Illusions

A number of perceptual (exteroceptive and proprioceptive) illusions present problems for predictive processing accounts. In this chapter we’ll review explanations of the Müller-Lyer Illusion (MLI), the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) and the Alien Hand Illusion (AHI) based on the idea of Prediction Error Minimization (PEM), and show why they fail. In spite of the relatively open communicative processes which, on many accounts, are posited between hierarchical levels of the cognitive system in order to facilitate the minimization of prediction errors, perceptual illusions seemingly allow prediction errors to rule. Even if, at the top, we have reliable and secure knowledge that the lines in the MLI are equal, or that the rubber hand in the RHI is not our hand, the system seems unable to correct for sensory errors that form the illusion. We argue that the standard PEM explanation based on a short-circuiting principle doesn’t work. This is the idea that where there are general statistical regularities in the environment there is a kind of short circuiting such that relevant priors are relegated to lower-level processing so that information from higher levels is not exchanged (Ogilvie and Carruthers, Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7:721–742, 2016), or is not as precise as it should be (Hohwy, The Predictive Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013). Such solutions (without convincing explanation) violate the idea of open communication and/or they over-discount the reliable and secure knowledge that is in the system. We propose an alternative, 4E (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive) solution. We argue that PEM fails to take into account the ‘structural resistance’ introduced by material and cultural factors in the broader cognitive system.

Predictability of Delayed Visual Feedback Under Rubber Hand Illusion Modulates Localization but Not Ownership of the Hand.

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is a perceptual illusion, whereby a fake hand is recognized as one’s own hand when a fake hand and felt real hand are stroked synchronously. RHI strength is mainly assessed using a questionnaire rating and proprioceptive drift (PD). PD is characterized by the proprioceptively sensed location of the participant’s own hand shifting toward the location of the fake hand after RHI. However, the relationship between the two measures of hand ownership and location remains controversial due to mixed findings: some studies report correlations between them, while others show that they are independent. Here, we demonstrated significant PD without RHI using delayed visual feedback. In this RHI study, video images of the fake hand were delivered to the subjects, and four delay intervals of visual feedback (80, 280, 480, and 680ms) were introduced. In four of six conditions, the delay interval was fixed throughout the condition. In the other two conditions, four delays were delivered in a predetermined order (i.e., serial condition; higher predictability) or in a pseudo-random order (i.e., random condition; low predictability). For the four conditions with a fixed delay, the questionnaire ratings and PD declined significantly when the delay interval exceeded circa 300ms. In both the serial and random conditions, no illusory ownership of the fake hand was reported in the questionnaire. In contrast, greater PD was found in the random condition but not in the serial condition. Our findings suggest that hand ownership and localization are caused by distinct multisensory integration processes.

Does the Intuition of Distinctness Result from Valid Reasoning? – Reply to Kammerer

According to an influential physicalist view, the intuition of distinctness is a cognitive illusion in the sense that it results from fallacious reasoning: we erroneously infer that the referents of phenomenal and physical concepts are different, from the fact that there is a certain difference between our uses of those concepts. (Kammerer, Review of Philosophy and Psychology 10:649–667, 2019) has recently argued, however, that it is psychologically implausible that the intuition of distinctness results from a fallacy: the reasoning process leading to this intuition is, in several psychological respects, similar to valid reasoning and dissimilar to typical fallacies, which gives us a reason to think that this process is a case of valid reasoning. I argue that there are no psychological reasons to think that the process underlying the intuition of distinctness (or at least the crucial part of this process) is a case of valid reasoning. There is, in fact, only one crucial psychological respect in which this process resembles valid reasoning, and although the two processes are similar in one crucial respect, this does not rule out that the intuition of distinctness results from a fallacy, namely, the sort of fallacious reasoning that physicalists have in mind. Furthermore, since the process underlying the intuition of distinctness resembles typical fallacies in one crucial respect, there is a reason to think that the intuition of distinctness does result from a fallacy.

Body Ownership of Anatomically Implausible Hands in Virtual Reality.

Manipulating sensory and motor cues can cause an illusionary perception of ownership of a fake body part. Presumably, the illusion can work as long as the false body part’s position and appearance are anatomically plausible. Here, we introduce an illusion that challenges past assumptions on body ownership. We used virtual reality to switch and mirror participants’ views of their hands. When a participant moves their physical hand, they see the incongruent virtual hand moving. The result is an anatomically implausible configuration of the fake hand. Despite the hand switch, participants reported significant body ownership sensations over the virtual hands. In the first between-group experiment, we found that the strength of body ownership over the incongruent hands was similar to that of congruent hands. Whereas, in the second within-group experiment, anatomical incongruency significantly decreased body ownership. Still, participants reported significant body ownership sensations of the switched hands. Curiously, we found that perceived levels of agency mediate the effect of anatomical congruency on body ownership. These findings offer a fresh perspective on the relationship between anatomical plausibility and assumed body ownership. We propose that goal-directed and purposeful actions can override anatomical plausibility constraints and discuss this in the context of the immersive properties of virtual reality.

The Mechanisms of the Visual System Behind Visual Illusions: From Eye to Brain

Visual illusion is a psychological phenomenon characterized by perception that appears to differ from physical reality. Illusory perception persists even though the sufferers are aware of the physical properties of what they are observing. Thus, studying visual illusions has led to an improved understanding of the neural mechanism underlying visual information processing. Visual illusions are important tools in neuroscience. Some brightness illusions, such as the Hermann grid illusion or Chevreul illusion, can be explained by the function of the center-surround antagonistic receptive field of retinal ganglion cells. Additionally, color aftereffects were found to be produced in the retina. In addition, neurons in the primary visual cortex are responsible for the orientation-contingent color aftereffect, known as the McCollough effect. ISI reversal, a visual motion illusion, is known to be caused by a biphasic temporal mechanism located in the retinal or lower visual areas. Higher visual areas are responsible for the production of visual illusions such as the Ponzo illusion, size constancy illusion, or tabletop illusion. These illusions are perceived through the process of achieving size constancy from a two-dimensional retinal image. Thus, both low-level and high-level vision are involved in the perception of visual illusions.

Driving and Flying Simulators: A Review on Relevant Considerations and Trends

Flying and driving simulation has encouraged an enormous and growing community in a wide variety of areas such as research centers, driver or pilot training academies, vehicle-testing facilities, amusement parks, and even at home by household enthusiasts, providing carefully integrated visual and perceptual illusions of driving or flying real vehicles. The global research on this subject is explored during the period 2000 to 2019 from an interdisciplinary perspective based on a systematic methodology, providing both new and experienced researchers with broad guidance toward key aspects for further investigations and developments. Emphasis is given to the analysis of the findings and in particular to their applicability, to an extent not attempted earlier, by considering both human and machine aspects.

Normative Principles for Decision-Making in Natural Environments.

The decisions we make are shaped by a lifetime of learning. Past experience guides the way that we encode information in neural systems for perception and valuation, and determines the information we retrieve when making decisions. Distinct literatures have discussed how lifelong learning and local context shape decisions made about sensory signals, propositional information, or economic prospects. Here, we build bridges between these literatures, arguing for common principles of adaptive rationality in perception, cognition, and economic choice. We discuss how a single common framework, based on normative principles of efficient coding and Bayesian inference, can help us understand a myriad of human decision biases, including sensory illusions, adaptive aftereffects, choice history biases, central tendency effects, anchoring effects, contrast effects, framing effects, congruency effects, reference-dependent valuation, nonlinear utility functions, and discretization heuristics. We describe a simple computational framework for explaining these phenomena.

L-Menthol - a new treatment for breathlessness?

In patients with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), it is challenging to treat breathlessness. In addition, novel palliative interventions are required for multiple perspectives of breathlessness that may still be present after disease-specific therapies. This review provides an overview of the mechanisms and effects of l-menthol on breathlessness by covering the latest relevant papers. A literature review identified one randomized controlled trial assessing the effect of l-menthol on relieving breathlessness in patients with COPD. It has been reported that the mechanism of relieving breathlessness partly involves stimulation of the trigeminal nerve by the cooling sensation of l-menthol, which gives a cognitive illusion of inspiratory flow perception. The effect of l-menthol on breathlessness caused by exertion has been reported in healthy subjects but not yet in patients with breathlessness. The effect of l-menthol on the sensory-emotional dimensions of laboratory-induced breathlessness in patients with COPD has been described in a clinical trial. Further studies are warranted to investigate its application to inspiratory muscle training and its effects in combination with exercise training.

Why Does Rubin's Vase Differ Radically From Optical Illusions? Framing Effects Contra Cognitive Illusions.

Many researchers use the term “context” loosely to denote diverse kinds of reference points. The issue is not about terminology but rather about the common conflation of one kind of reference points, such as rules of perception, which is responsible for optical illusions, with another kind, known as “context” or “frame,” as exemplified in Rubin's vase. Many researchers regard Rubin's vase as a special kind of optical illusions. This paper rather argues that the two phenomena are radically different. Optical illusions are occasional mistakes that people quickly recognize and eagerly correct, while the different figures of Rubin's vase are not mistakes but, rather, the outcomes of different perspectives that do not need correction. The competing figures in Rubin's vase can, at best, in light of more information, be more warranted or unwarranted. This paper discusses at length one ramification of the proposed distinction. The framing effects, such as loss/gain frame, are the products of contexts and, hence, resemble greatly the figures in Rubin's vase. In contrast, cognitive illusions generated occasionally by the rules of thumb (heuristics) are mistakes and, hence, resemble optical illusions. The proposed distinction carries other ramifications regarding, e.g., happiness studies, moral judgments, and the new philosophy of science.

Sustained rubber hand illusion after the end of visuotactile stimulation with a similar time course for the reduction of subjective ownership and proprioceptive drift

The rubber hand illusion is a perceptual illusion in which participants experience an inanimate rubber hand as their own when they observe this model hand being stroked in synchrony with strokes applied to the person’s real hand, which is hidden. Earlier studies have focused on the factors that determine the elicitation of this illusion, the relative contribution of vision, touch and other sensory modalities involved and the best ways to quantify this perceptual phenomenon. Questionnaires serve to assess the subjective feeling of ownership, whereas proprioceptive drift is a measure of the recalibration of hand position sense towards the rubber hand when the illusion is induced. Proprioceptive drift has been widely used and thought of as an objective measure of the illusion, although the relationship between this measure and the subjective illusion is not fully understood. Here, we examined how long the illusion is maintained after the synchronous visuotactile stimulation stops with the specific aim of clarifying the temporal relationship in the reduction of both subjective ownership and proprioceptive drift. Our results show that both the feeling of ownership and proprioceptive drift are sustained for tens of seconds after visuotactile stroking has ceased. Furthermore, our results indicate that the reduction of proprioceptive drift and the feeling of ownership follow similar time courses in their reduction, suggesting that the two phenomena are temporally correlated. Collectively, these findings help us better understand the relationships of multisensory stimulation, subjective ownership, and proprioceptive drift in the rubber hand illusion.

The interaction between motion and texture in the sense of touch.

Besides providing information on elementary properties of objects, like texture, roughness, and softness, the sense of touch is also important in building a representation of object movement and the movement of our hands. Neural and behavioral studies shed light on the mechanisms and limits of our sense of touch in the perception of texture and motion, and of its role in the control of movement of our hands. The interplay between the geometrical and mechanical properties of the touched objects, such as shape and texture, the movement of the hand exploring the object, and the motion felt by touch, will be discussed in this article. Interestingly, the interaction between motion and textures can generate perceptual illusions in touch. For example, the orientation and the spacing of the texture elements on a static surface induces the illusion of surface motion when we move our hand on it or can elicit the perception of a curved trajectory during sliding, straight hand movements. In this work we present a multiperspective view that encompasses both the perceptual and the motor aspects, as well as the response of peripheral and central nerve structures, to analyze and better understand the complex mechanisms underpinning the tactile representation of texture and motion. Such a better understanding of the spatiotemporal features of the tactile stimulus can reveal novel transdisciplinary applications in neuroscience and haptics.

Motor Circuit and Superior Temporal Sulcus Activities Linked to Individual Differences in Multisensory Speech Perception.

Integrating multimodal information into a unified perception is a fundamental human capacity. McGurk effect is a remarkable multisensory illusion that demonstrates a percept different from incongruent auditory and visual syllables. However, not all listeners perceive the McGurk illusion to the same degree. The neural basis for individual differences in modulation of multisensory integration and syllabic perception remains largely unclear. To probe the possible involvement of specific neural circuits in individual differences in multisensory speech perception, we first implemented a behavioral experiment to examine the McGurk susceptibility. Then, functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed in 63 participants to measure the brain activity in response to non-McGurk audiovisual syllables. We revealed significant individual variability in McGurk illusion perception. Moreover, we found significant differential activations of the auditory and visual regions and the left Superior temporal sulcus (STS), as well as multiple motor areas between strong and weak McGurk perceivers. Importantly, the individual engagement of the STS and motor areas could specifically predict the behavioral McGurk susceptibility, contrary to the sensory regions. These findings suggest that the distinct multimodal integration in STS as well as coordinated phonemic modulatory processes in motor circuits may serve as a neural substrate for interindividual differences in multisensory speech perception.

Multisensory stimulation

Multisensory stimulation

Faire voir: Études sur l'enargeia de l'Antiquité à l'époque moderne ed. by Florence Klein and Ruth Webb

Reviewed by: Faire voir: Études sur l'enargeia de l'Antiquité à l'époque moderne ed. by Florence Klein and Ruth Webb Flora Iff-Noël Faire voir: Études sur l'enargeia de l'Antiquité à l'époque moderne. Edited by Florence Klein and Ruth Webb. Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion. 2021. Pp. 293, ills. This collective volume, which presents the proceedings of a two-day conference at Tourcoing in 2014, analyzes the theory and practice of enargeia and its relationship to visual art through various case studies from archaic Greece to imperial Rome. It contributes to the constantly growing scholarship on text and image studies since the [End Page 375] 1990s, and more precisely on the connections between the Hellenistic concept of enargeia and ancient art and text.1 Indeed, enargeia, defined as the capacity of words to create the impression that absent things are present to the senses, and in particular to the sense of sight (9; see Quint. IO 6.2.29–32), has already been the object of monographs about Hellenistic poetry, imperial rhetoric, and historiography.2 The present volume aims to fill three gaps in the scholarship by considering the following issues (10–11): 1. How can we study enargeia in archaic and classical Greek texts when there are no contemporary theoretical texts on the matter? Can we identify practices specifically associated with particular literary genres? 2. Even after enargeia's theorization and practice in Hellenistic and Roman times, what is the status of word-created images? Are they effective substitutes to the perception of real objects or deceitful illusions? 3. Especially since the 1950s, scholarship interested in descriptions of artworks has isolated such texts and labeled them ekphraseis, changing the meaning of this word, which was originally used in imperial Greek rhetoric to designate texts full of enargeia, i.e., texts that could "place their object as if under the eyes of their reader or audience" (Aelius Theon, Progymnasmata 118). This volume aims to reconsider such texts within the context of enargeia and to explore the role of enargeia within the reception of real artworks and the production of discourse about them. The book focuses especially on Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Zeuxis, Posidippus of Pella, Moschus, Sallust, Pliny, Ovid, Quintilian, and Pseudo-Longinus. Thus, it is of interest to all classicists, as it tackles rhetoric, poetry, historiography, drama, and art history, both in Greece and in Rome. As all quotes are translated, the volume will also be valuable to scholars of modern literature interested in questions of intertextuality, hypotyposis, text and image studies, as well as for historians, art historians, and university students. The Introduction provides a helpful definition of enargeia and a summary of the various chapters. Chapter One by Pierre Judet de La Combe analyzes the description of fountains in the Iliad (22.145–161). How can we explain the presence of a lengthy description of fountains at the precise moment of Hector's defeat, which is the turning point of the war? Judet de La Combe considers it to have a metapoetic meaning, reflecting on the nature of epic. Chapter Two by Deborah Steiner explores the various interactions between objects and texts inscribed on them by comparing the spectator's real vision of the object to the reader's mental vision of the images evoked by the inscribed texts. She focuses on three archaic inscriptions (IG2 I 919 on the oenochoe of Dipylon, Athens, Archeological Museum 192; a funerary epigram on the cenotaph of Ambracia, SEG 41.450; IG I3 833 [End Page 376] bis on an Athenian marble tripod dedicated by a victorious choral poet). Steiner argues that seeing these inscriptions is an anticipation of the images evoked by the inscription's content. For instance, the letters' disposition sometimes seems to represent the shapes of the dance moves evoked in the inscriptions, as when the letters create effects of symmetry that represent the dancers' symmetrical movements, or when the inscription as a whole is placed below representations of dancers and constitutes a wavy line which mimics the dancers' chorus line. The way these inscriptions are written is meaningful for enargeia and...

Impact of Financial Literacy and Behavioural Biases on Investment Decision-making

Investors’ financial literacy entails making sound investment decisions and the behavioural biases or irrational behaviour in decision-making that are collectively formed by heuristic bias, framing effect, cognitive illusions and herd mentality factors. The present study examines the combined impact of financial literacy and behavioural biases on investment decisions. A questionnaire was developed using Likert scaling technique to elicit study variables and collected data was analysed using SEM technique. The results showed that heuristic bias had a significant positive association with the creation of behavioural bias in decision-making. However, the framing effect, cognitive illusions and herd mentality have negative associations in the formation of behavioural biases. Further, investors often practice and follow heuristic biases rather than other irrational techniques for making investment decisions. Therefore, the financial literacy of individual investors has a significant impact on affecting stock market investment decisions.

Feedback from lateral occipital cortex to V1/V2 triggers object completion: Evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging and dynamic causal modeling.

Illusory figures demonstrate the visual system's ability to integrate disparate parts into coherent wholes. We probed this object integration process by either presenting an integrated diamond shape or a comparable ungrouped configuration that did not render a complete object. Two tasks were used that either required localization of a target dot (relative to the presented configuration) or discrimination of the dot's luminance. The results showed that only when the configuration was task relevant (in the localization task), performance benefited from the presentation of an integrated object. Concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed and analyzed using dynamic causal modeling to investigate the (causal) relationship between regions that are associated with illusory figure completion. We found object‐specific feedback connections between the lateral occipital cortex (LOC) and early visual cortex (V1/V2). These modulatory connections persisted across task demands and hemispheres. Our results thus provide direct evidence that interactions between mid‐level and early visual processing regions engage in illusory figure perception. These data suggest that LOC first integrates inputs from multiple neurons in lower‐level cortices, generating a global shape representation while more fine‐graded object details are then determined via feedback to early visual areas, independently of the current task demands.

Somatosensory contribution to audio-visual speech processing

Recent studies have demonstrated that the auditory speech perception of a listener can be modulated by somatosensory input applied to the facial skin suggesting that perception is an embodied process. However, speech perception is a multisensory process involving both the auditory and visual modalities. It is unknown whether and to what extent somatosensory stimulation to the facial skin modulates audio-visual speech perception. If speech perception is an embodied process, then somatosensory stimulation applied to the perceiver should influence audio-visual speech processing. Using the McGurk effect (the perceptual illusion that occurs when a sound is paired with the visual representation of a different sound, resulting in the perception of a third sound) we tested the prediction using a simple behavioral paradigm and at the neural level using event-related potentials (ERPs) and their cortical sources. We recorded ERPs from 64 scalp sites in response to congruent and incongruent audio-visual speech randomly presented with and without somatosensory stimulation associated with facial skin deformation. Subjects judged whether the production was /ba/ or not under all stimulus conditions. In the congruent audio-visual condition subjects identifying the sound as /ba/, but not in the incongruent condition consistent with the McGurk effect. Concurrent somatosensory stimulation improved the ability of participants to more correctly identify the production as /ba/ relative to the non-somatosensory condition in both congruent and incongruent conditions. ERP in response to the somatosensory stimulation for the incongruent condition reliably diverged 220 msec after stimulation onset. Cortical sources were estimated around the left anterior temporal gyrus, the right middle temporal gyrus, the right posterior superior temporal lobe and the right occipital region. The results demonstrate a clear multisensory convergence of somatosensory and audio-visual processing in both behavioral and neural processing consistent with the perspective that speech perception is a self-referenced, sensorimotor process.

Illusory Planes in Fred Sandback’s Sculpture

Abstract A remarkable feature often noted of artist Fred Sandback’s string constructions: The geometrical forms he created with string have a strong planar feel. Phenomenologically, viewers perceive the spaces between the strings as planes with some substance. The illusion is amodally completed, as in the well-known Kanizsa triangle, by minimal prompts, but in three dimensions. Instead of creating an illusory figure, then, Sandback creates illusory planes. By noting how the constructions are like “impossible” figures, one can see how bottom-up and top-down effects combine to complicate the illusion, and the works become about the construction of space rather than its reification.