- The experiment will be a repeated measures one factor design, with the independent variable

being the different available stimuli (heuristics) presented to the participants

- There will be five different conditions and each will be presented to the subjects five times.
o Missing Disc Condition (1): grey discs missing
 This condition will be used to justify our assumption that the grey discs are
necessary for the perception of illusory contours and that the small dots alone
do not suffice
 Outcome:
o We predict that there is a high probability that the illusory
contours will not be perceived in this condition because the
occlusion done on the part of the grey disc is required
o If the contours are perceived, we can reconsider the
assumptions made and conclude that the occlusion done on the
part of the grey discs is not a necessary condition for the
perception of contours and that the small dots alone are
sufficient
o Missing Dot Condition (2): small dots missing
 This condition will be used to justify our assumption that the small dots are
necessary for the perception of illusory contours and that the grey discs alone
do not suffice  reverse of condition 1
 Outcome:
o We predict that the illusory contours will not be perceived
because the presence of the moving dots is required for the
activation of the common fate heuristic which introduces
another element and leads to the perception of the contours
o If the contours are still perceived, something else must account
for the perception of the contours such as the asynchronous
movement of the vertical disc pair and the horizontal disc pair in
relation to each-other; the small dots are not necessary for the
perception of the contours
o Dot-disc discrepancy condition (3): the movement of the grey discs and the small dots
are no longer in such a way that the dots leave the rectangle simultaneous with the grey
discs occluding it. In this condition, as the dots leave the rectangle, the grey discs do not
move inward but outward as well – therefore not occluding the rectangle in such a way
that the occlusion can be attributed to the small dots
 Outcome:
 We predict that the illusory contours will not be perceived because it is
required for the dots to leave the rectangle as the discs occlude it, in
order for the occlusion done by the discs to be attributed to the small
dots  this way cues such as common fate (dots) and occlusion (discs)
both are ascribed to the moving dots
  If the contours are still present, many confusions will arise and the
entire hypothesis will need to be evaluated
o Similarity interference condition (4): the dots will be colour matched with discs in order
to interfere with any type of grouping that is taking place based on the similarity
heuristic; we mentioned that the dots are being grouped together due to their
similarity. Different hues will be used in each of the five trials
(blue/yellow/red/green/purple) in order to avoid memory biases which might lead the
subjects’ susceptibility to the grouping by similarity heuristic to either become weaker
or stronger. The matching will be used to group half of the discs with half of the dots
because the main goal is to reduce the grouping by similarity effect that is influencing
the grouping of the dots with one another. This way, half of the dots are grouped with
half of the discs and therefore some sort of interference is bound to take place
regarding this cue. A single colour will be used in each trial (out of the five) and the
uncoloured half will remain exactly the same as the demo. Lastly, the colour matching
will only apply to horizontal-vertical pairs because otherwise the dots would not be
spotted since after merging with the discs, there would be no hue difference that could
distinguish the dots from the discs. The same five trials will be used for every subject.

Trial X trial Y

 Outcome:
 The predicted outcome is that the illusory contours will become less
prominent since the similarity heuristic that was hypothesized to group
the dots and therefore lead to them being seen as a single object would
now work against this kind of grouping and lead to the separation of the
dots from one-another.
 If there is no significant difference between intensity of the contours in
this condition compared to the demo condition, the similarity heuristic
is not the main reason why the small dots are being grouped together
and other heuristics are at work (e.g. global superiority effect, law of
pragnaz)
- Control condition (5): demo with no changes
- Dependent variable
o We will use the cross-modality matching method in order to get a measure of the
strength of the illusory contours
 A 3x3cm cube placed on the bottom of the screen will emit white light at
intensities controlled by the subjects via the “up” and “down” arrow keys on a
keyboard
 The subjects will be instructed to adjust the brightness of the light source in
accordance with their perceived strength of the contours on every trial and
press the “space bar” when they have made the appropriate match
 The dependent variable will be the intensity of the light in watts after the
subject presses the “space bar”
- Trial organization
o So there are 5 different conditions in total and each condition is presented to each
participant 5 times which leads to a total of 25 trials per participant  should take no
longer than 20 minutes
o A Latin square will be used to distribute the conditions in 5 blocks (A-E)

[Lucas: the table isn’t necessarily required]

 This way sequence effects are accounted for since every condition in the study
occurs equally often in every sequential position and every condition precedes
and follows every other condition exactly once

- Further details:
o 25 subjects will be required and can be taken from the Queen’s university psychology
subject pool
o Qualifications: must have normal or corrected to normal vision
o Exclusion criteria:
 If any hardware or software malfunctions occur the subject is compensated and
dismissed
 If the entire study is not complete then the subject’s scores are omitted
 If subjects take longer than 5 minutes to adjust the brightness of the light
source, they will be left to complete the study and will be compensated but
their scores will be omitted and replaced by another participant
- Measurement
o A within-subjects ANOVA will be used to analyze the data and if a significant difference
between conditions is found (p<.05), a Tukeys post hoc test will be used to find specific
differences
 All conditions will be compared to the control: Demo (5)
 All must be significantly less (dependent measure - light source intensity
in watts)
o Whichever condition is not significantly less fails to provide
empirical justification for the corresponding assumption which
it was aiming to support