Relative mislocalization of briefly presented stimuli in the retinal periphery

We studied the ability to localize flashed stimuli, using a relative judgment task. When observers are asked to localize the peripheral position of a probe with respect to the midposition of a spatially extended comparison stimulus, they tend to judge the probe as being more toward the periphery tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perception & psychophysics 1999-11, Vol.61 (8), p.1646-1661
Main Authors: MÜSSELER, J, VAN DER HEIJDEN, A. H. C, MAHMUD, S. H, DEUBEL, H, ERTSEY, S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Discrimination Learning
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Optical Illusions
Orientation
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Saccades
Space Perception
Vision
Visual Fields
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Summary:We studied the ability to localize flashed stimuli, using a relative judgment task. When observers are asked to localize the peripheral position of a probe with respect to the midposition of a spatially extended comparison stimulus, they tend to judge the probe as being more toward the periphery than is the midposition of the comparison stimulus. We report seven experiments in which this novel phenomenon was explored. They reveal that the mislocalization occurs only when the probe and the comparison stimulus are presented in succession, independent of whether the probe or the comparison stimulus comes first (Experiment 1). The size of the mislocalization is dependent on the stimulus onset asynchrony (Experiment 2) and on the eccentricity of presentation (Experiment 3). In addition, the illusion also occurs in an absolute judgment task, which links mislocalization with the general tendency to judge peripherally presented stimuli as being more foveal than they actually are (Experiment 4). The last three experiments reveal that relative mislocalization is affected by the amount of spatial extension of the comparison stimulus (Experiment 5) and by its structure (Experiments 6 and 7). This pattern of results allows us to evaluate possible explanations of the illusion and to relate it to comparable tendencies observed in eye movement behavior. It is concluded that the system in charge of the guidance of saccadic eye movements is also the system that provides the metric in perceived visual space.
ISSN:0031-5117
1532-5962
DOI:10.3758/bf03213124