Constraints on the Processing of Rolling Motion: The Curtate Cycloid Illusion

When a wheel rolls along a flat surface, a point on its perimeter traces a cycloid trajectory, forming a sequence of adjacent semicircle-like scallops. However, when mentally visualizing this point's trajectory, participants erroneously describe the point's path as looping back on itself b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 1995-12, Vol.21 (6), p.1391-1408
Main Authors: Isaak, Matthew I, Just, Marcel Adam
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cognition & reasoning
Conceptual Imagery
Eyes & eyesight
Form Perception - physiology
Human
Humans
Illusions (Perception)
Illusions - psychology
Kinetics
Motion Perception
Photic Stimulation
Psychology
Rotation
Space life sciences
Spatial Ability
Spatial Behavior
Visual Perception - physiology
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Summary:When a wheel rolls along a flat surface, a point on its perimeter traces a cycloid trajectory, forming a sequence of adjacent semicircle-like scallops. However, when mentally visualizing this point's trajectory, participants erroneously describe the point's path as looping back on itself between each scallop or phase of the cycloid, a phenomenon called the curtate cycloid illusion. The studies supported the hypothesis that the curtate cycloid illusion occurs because the cognitive system sometimes does not have sufficient resources for simultaneously processing 2 components of the motion: its translation and its rotation about its current instant center. Four experiments using computer-animated rolling wheels found that participants who were high in spatial ability were less susceptible to the curtate cycloid illusion than were low-spatial participants, that high-spatial participants were not susceptible to the illusion if they could control the animated wheel display, and that the illusion was substantially decreased if the opportunity to compute instant centers was reduced.
ISSN:0096-1523
1939-1277
DOI:10.1037/0096-1523.21.6.1391