Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Naive optics: Predicting and perceiving reflections in mirrors.

Marco Bertamini1, Alice Spooner, Heiko Hecht

  • 1U Liverpool, Dept of Psychology, Liverpool, United Kingdom. m.bertamini@liverpool.ac.uk

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance
|October 31, 2003
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

At the roots of Plant Awareness Disparity (PAD): Semantic processing and numerosity perception.

PloS one·2026
Same author

Anticipatory vibrotactile cues about upcoming turns reduce motion sickness: A study with car passengers on public roads.

Applied ergonomics·2026
Same author

Delayed foveal and parafoveal masks disrupt peripheral target processing.

Cognition·2026
Same author

Sustained posterior negativity (SPN) elicited by brief (20 ms) symmetrical stimuli.

Frontiers in psychology·2026
Same author

Perceptual organization and its visual subcomponents in schizophrenia and schizotypy: A systematic review.

Schizophrenia research·2026
Same author

German Translation and Validation of the Visually Induced Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire Short (VIMSSQ-short).

Multisensory research·2025
Same journal

Human thermal sensitivity drifts at extreme temperatures.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Dynamic competition between selective attention and spatial prediction during visual search.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Encapsulation of the visual perception of social events from semantic priming.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Biasmapping: Idiosyncratic covert search in the vicinity of fixation.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

What are you still waiting for? Fricative recognition shows encapsulated processing and is partially predicted by secondary cue reliance.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Eye movements reveal that drivers can predict the location of hazards in dynamic road scenes but gaze and awareness are dissociable.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
See all related articles

People expect to see their mirror reflections sooner than they appear when moving horizontally. This suggests a mental model of reflections rotating around a vertical axis, impacting predictive and perceptual knowledge.

Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Visual Perception

Background:

  • Understanding how individuals perceive and predict visual information in mirrors is crucial for cognitive science.
  • Previous research indicates discrepancies between actual and perceived mirror reflections.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate undergraduate students' predictions of mirror visibility.
  • To explore the mental models individuals use to interpret mirror reflections.
  • To compare predictive and perceptual judgments of mirror image distortions.

Main Methods:

  • A paper-and-pencil task was used to assess participants' predictions of when their reflection would become visible.
  • Participants judged the naturalness of manipulated mirror reflections.
  • Horizontal and vertical movement scenarios were tested with various mirror orientations.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Participants consistently predicted seeing their reflection earlier than actual when approaching mirrors horizontally.
  • This predictive error occurred regardless of mirror orientation (wall, floor, ceiling).
  • Vertical movement (e.g., in a lift) did not elicit the same predictive error.
  • Distorted reflections were judged with high tolerance, but vertical axis rotation was deemed unnatural.

Conclusions:

  • The findings support a hypothesis that mirror reflections are often conceptualized as rotating around a vertical axis.
  • Perceptual and predictive knowledge systems generate distinct error patterns in interpreting mirror images.
  • This highlights the complex interplay between cognitive processes and visual perception.