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Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Generating Strictly Controlled Stimuli for Figure Recognition Experiments
Published on: March 18, 2019
The triangle-bisection illusion
Stuart Anstis1, Richard Gregory, Priscilla Heard
1Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA. sanstis@ucsd.edu
Abstract:
In the triangle-bisection illusion, a dot is inscribed exactly halfway up the height of an equilateral triangle, but it looks apparently far more than halfway up. The illusion is found for second-order triangles defined by stereo depth and by equiluminous texture. It is strongest for equilateral triangles, and even stronger for concave triangles with curved sides. We propose that the observers are probably responding to the centre of area or centre of gravity of the triangle rather than to its half-height.
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