BLIND SPOT

What methods did we employ in this experiment?

You were asked to close your left eye, and carefully position your head so that your right eye was 11
inches / 28 cm directly in front of the blue square. On each trial, the square turned green to indicate the
dot had appeared, and one second later, the dot moved from the left of the screen to the right of the
screen. You were asked to indicate when the dot disappeared and reappeared.

The independent variable in this experiment is the position of the dot on the screen. The dependent
variable is whether you report seeing the dot disappear/reappear.

What do we predict participants will do? Why?

For your individual data, the table below shows the regions where you reported seeing the dot (marked by
1s) and the regions where you reported not seeing the dot (marked by 0s). For group data, the numbers
will be between 1 and 0.

You should find that most numbers are 1, but, that near the middle of right-side of the matrix, there is a
set of values of 0. These are points that fall on your blind spot.

How robust is this effect? Are there limits to this effect?

Everyone has a blind spot. As long as you kept your right eye on the fixation point and at the appropriate
distance from the screen, the results should show the blind spot. If you moved your eye or head, you
always would have been able to see the presented dot, so your data would not show evidence of the blind
spot. Of course, it is still there.

The size of the blind spot does differ somewhat across people. More important, it depends on how close
you sit to the computer monitor. If you sit close to the monitor, the blind spot will cover fewer dots than if
you sit far away. This is because, when you sit close, less of the monitor display falls onto the region of
your eye that corresponds to the blind spot.

The table shows a 1 where the dot was visible and a 0 where it was not visible, based on your judgments
of when the dot disappeared and reappeared. There should be a cluster of 0s towards the right part of the
matrix. The figure below shows a graphical representation of the same data, with 1 = green and 0 = red.

MUELLER

What methods did we employ in this experiment?

On each trial, two vertical lines were shown. One line had the outward-drawn wings to make the Müller-
Lyer stimulus, and was always the same size. The other (comparison) line had no wings and its length
varied from trial to trial. Your task was to choose which vertical line was longer on a given trial.
The independent variable in this experiment was the length of the comparison line (the line without
wings). The dependent variable was the proportion of trials in which you reported that the Müller-Lyer
line was longer than the comparison line.

What do we predict participants will do? Why?

The graph, below, plots the proportion of trials in which the Müller-Lyer line was reported as longer than
the comparison line. The Müller-Lyer line was always 100 pixels long. The x-axis gives the pixel length
of the comparison line. Typically, proportion of judgments are close to zero on the left of the plot and
increase toward one on the far right. The Müller-Lyer illusion is that the line with wings appears to be
longer than a line without wings. To determine if the illusion is present in your data, find the point on the
y-axis that corresponds to 0.5 and imagine a horizontal line beginning at this point and going to the right.
Find where this imaginary line meets the plotted line. Then, determine the value on the x-axis. If the value
on the x-axis is 100, there is no illusion. If the value on the x-axis is more than 100, then the illusion is
present.

How robust is this effect? Are there limits to this effect?

The Müller-Lyer illusion is one of the most studied illusions in cognitive psychology. It has been
replicated thousands of times. The strength of the illusion can be varied by changing the properties of the
line, the wings, and context in which the stimuli are placed.

Results

The graph below plots the proportion of trials you chose the vertical line without wings as bigger than the
line with wings. The line with wings was always 100 pixels long. The x-axis gives the pixel length of the
line without wings. The Muller-Lyer illusion is that the line with wings appears to be longer than a line
without wings. Typical data shows that proportions are close to zero on the left and increase toward one
on the far right. If there were no illusion, the line would be at approximately 0.5 for a line without wings
length of 100 pixels. Evidence of the illusory effect would be when the 0.5 proportion is for a pixel length
greater than 100 pixels.

GARNER INTEGRAL

What methods did we employ in this experiment?

Studies of Garner interference explore how our perceptual and cognitive mechanisms represent
information. The main idea is that if two stimulus properties are represented in an integrated way, a task
that varies both properties will be more difficult than a task that varies only one property. On the other
hand, if two properties are represented separately, a task that varies both properties should not be more
difficult than a task that varies only one property.

In this experiment, you saw stimuli with integral dimensions. On each trial, a stimulus appeared and you
judged the brightness (light or dark) of the stimulus. The stimuli also varied in saturation, or how
"colorful" the stimulus was relative to neutral gray.

There were 6 blocks of trials, and you were given a short break between blocks. Two blocks of trials were
baseline trials in which the saturation of the stimulus was held constant and you judged the brightness of
the stimulus. For the two blocks of correlated trials, the saturation changed in a consistent way with the
brightness (i.e., in one block the light stimulus was had high saturation and the dark stimulus had low
saturation). For the blocks of filtering trials, the saturation of the stimulus varied without relation to the
brightness of the stimulus.

The independent variable in this experiment is the type of trial, baseline, correlated, or filtering. The
dependent variable is the response time to correctly judge the stimulus as light or dark.

What do we predict participants will do? Why?

Past research has shown that the stimulus dimensions brightness and saturation are integral, and that the
visual system represents them together. As a result, it will be difficult to focus your attention on just the
dimension that matters for the judgment. The response time should be shortest for the correlated
condition. In this condition, you could pay attention to either dimension and respond correctly. The
response time might be a bit longer for the baseline condition because only the relevant dimension gives
you the information you need. The other dimension does not help or hurt because it is always the same.
The slowest response time should be found for the filtering condition. Here, both dimensions vary
independently. Because the dimensions are integrally related, it is difficult to focus on one and ignore the
other. This should make the task more difficult and lead to a longer response times. The increase in
response time for the filtering condition relative to the baseline condition is called Garner interference.

How robust is this effect? Are there limits to this effect?

Garner interference can be studied in lots of different situations, including "higher order" concepts such as
face processing. It is a powerful experimental tool for exploring how concepts and information are
represented in cognitive systems. However, the effect may not be observed in your data if your display
did not render the colors accurately.

The expectation is that the RTs for the correlated trials will be either slightly faster or equal to the RTs for
the baseline condition. However, RTs for the filtering condition -- when the saturation of the stimulus
varied but was unrelated to the task -- should be slower than baseline, indicating the presence of Garner
interference.

GARNER SEPERABLE

What methods did we employ in this experiment?

Studies of Garner interference explore how our perceptual and cognitive mechanisms represent
information. The main idea is that if two stimulus properties are represented in an integrated way, a task
that varies both properties will be more difficult than a task that varies only one property. On the other
hand, if two properties are represented separately, a task that varies both properties should not be more
difficult than a task that varies only one property.

In this experiment, you saw stimuli with separable dimensions. On each trial, a stimulus appeared and you
judged the brightness (light or dark) of the stimulus. The stimuli also varied in size.

There were 6 blocks of trials, and you were given a short break between blocks. Two blocks of trials were
baseline trials in which the size of the stimulus was held constant and you judged the brightness of the
stimulus. For the two blocks of correlated trials, the size changed in a consistent way with the brightness
(i.e., in one block the light stimulus was small and the dark stimulus was large). For the blocks of filtering
trials, the size of the stimulus varied without relation to the brightness of the stimulus.

The independent variable in this experiment is the type of trial, baseline, correlated, or filtering. The
dependent variable is the response time to correctly judge the stimulus as light or dark.

What do we predict participants will do? Why?

Past research has shown that the stimulus dimensions brightness and size are separable, and that the visual
system represents them separately. As a result, you should be able to focus your attention on just the
dimension that matters for the judgment. Unlike with integral dimensions, your response times should be
similar in all three conditions.

How robust is this effect? Are there limits to this effect?

Garner interference can be studied in lots of different situations, including "higher order" concepts such as
face processing. It is a powerful experimental tool for exploring how concepts and information are
represented in cognitive systems. However, the effect may not be observed in your data if your display
did not render the colors accurately.

Results

The expectation is that the RTs for the correlated trials will be either slightly faster or equal to the RTs for
the baseline condition. In addition, RTs for the filtering condition -- when the size of the stimulus varied
but was unrelated to the task -- should be about the same as baseline, indicating the absence of Garner
interference.

MOTION

What methods did we employ in this experiment?

On each trial of the experiment, a dot appeared and disappeared on both the left and right sides of the
display. You changed the duration of a blank between the dots. You stopped the trial when the duration of
the blank seemed to give the most convincing impression of motion for the dots. This is the Best ISI for
that trial. Although the dot does not actually move across the display, with a properly chosen ISI, the
apparent motion of the dot can be fairly convincing.

The independent variable in this experiment was the spatial separation of the dots. On some trials the dots
were close together and on other trials the dots were far apart.

What do we predict participants will do? Why?

The graph below plots the average Best ISI (in milliseconds) as a function of dot distance from the center
of the screen. You should find that the Best ISI increases with distance. This relationship was first noticed
by Korte (1915), one of the earliest researchers on apparent motion.
The relationship between spatial separation and ISI threshold is consistent with a variety of theories that
hypothesize that the visual system builds a motion percept. For larger separations, the stimulus must
"move" a farther distance, which presumably requires a greater length of time. This experiment allows
you to see apparent motion in one of its simplest forms and to demonstrate Korte's law for yourself.

Apparent motion is the basis of movement in all television, movies, and computer animation. The screen
actually shows a rapid succession of still images; the perceived motion is entirely "apparent" and illusory.

How robust is this effect? Are there limits to this effect?

Apparent motion is extremely robust. The percept of motion seems to appear whether you pay attention to
the stimuli or not. Korte's law is also quite robust. It is found for lots of different types of stimuli.
Perception of motion, however, is extremely complicated and depends on many factors other than just the
distance between stimuli. Color, shape, perceived depth, and context also have a big influence on
perceived motion.

Results

The plot shows the best ISI for different spatial separations of the stimuli. The expected result is that as
the spatial separation increases, the ISI for producing the best motion will also increase. Thus, the line
should slant up from left to right.