The visuomotor system resists the horizontal-vertical illusion
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Updated: Oct 10, 2026

Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior
Published on: April 16, 2014
P Servos1, H Carnahan, J Fedwick
1Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5, Canada. pservos@wlu.ca
Abstract:
The effect of the horizontal-vertical illusion on the visual and visuomotor systems was investigated. Participants (N = 8) viewed horizontal and vertical lines in an inverted-T stimulus and judged whether the two line segments were the same or different lengths. Participants also reached out and grasped either the vertical or the horizontal line segment of the stimulus. Perceptually, participants succumbed to the illusion; that is, they judged Ts of equal horizontal and vertical line lengths to be different and Ts of unequal line lengths to be the same. When reaching toward the same stimuli, however, the size of their grip aperture was scaled appropriately for the various line lengths. Thus, whereas the perceptual system succumbed to the illusion, the visuomotor system did not. Those results support a model proposed by M. A. Goodale and A. D. Milner (1992), who posited separate cortical pathways for visual perception and visually guided action.
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