Length illusion in fractional Müller-Lyer stimuli: an object-perception approach

Length judgments were compared for Müller-Lyer stimuli and figures which had line junctions at only one end of the central shaft. A length illusion occurred for fractional figures, only slightly reduced in magnitude from the usual illusion, and the largest reduction occurred for fractional figures with fork junctions. These results are consistent with an hypothesis (drawn from artificial intelligence algorithms for interpreting line drawings) that isolated line junctions are treated as boundary junctions with constrained interpretations of convex and concave edges for the shafts of arrow and fork junctions, respectively. Information about relative position of edges may be used to constrain computation of metric properties and consequential differences in size scaling would be responsible for the illusion. Illusions can arise when information well suited for one kind of task (eg object recognition) is employed in tasks for which it is not well suited (eg size perception).