4/18/23, 10:14 PM CogLab: Müller-Lyer Illusion

Müller-Lyer Illusion

Estimated time to complete

lab: 40 minutes

Background
This experiment serves two purposes. First, it introduces a well-known perceptual illusion
called the Müller-Lyer illusion (named after Franz Carl Müller-Lyer, who published a paper on
the topic in 1889). Second, it demonstrates a psychophysical experimental method called
the method of constant stimuli.

The Müller-Lyer illusion is easily demonstrated. In the figure below, there are three horizontal
lines. Two of the lines contain a pair of "wings." The wings are drawn outward or inward from
the end of the line. The illusion is that the line with the outward-drawn wings tends to look
longer than the line with the inward-drawn wings. The line without wings tends to look smaller
than the line with outward-drawn wings and bigger than the line with inward-drawn wings. It is
an illusion because the lines are actually all the same length, which you can verify with a ruler.

It is fun to look at visual illusions and realize how our perception differs from reality. To guide
the development of theories on cognition and perception, however, we need more-specific
data. We need to know, for example, just how long does the line with the wings drawn outward
look? The more general question is, "How do we measure characteristics of a percept?" We
cannot measure them directly because perception is a particularly subjective experience.

The field of psychophysics deals with precisely this question. It attempts to relate reported
characteristics of perception to physical properties. Instead of just asking an observer to look at
and comment on stimuli, specific judgments are required and the stimuli are systematically
varied. For the Müller-Lyer illusion, we will have observers compare the perception produced
by a line with outward-drawn wings to the perception produced by lines with no wings. We will
systematically vary the length of the line without wings to see when the perceived line lengths
match. We can then look at the physical length of the matching line without wings and use that
as a measure of the strength of the Müller-Lyer illusion.There are several ways to go about
making such comparisons. One of the simplest and most powerful is the method of constant
stimuli. We will generate a large set of lines without wings of varying lengths and have the
observer compare each one with a standard line with wings. For each comparison the observer
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4/18/23, 10:14 PM CogLab: Müller-Lyer Illusion

notes whether the line without wings is perceived to be longer or shorter than the line with
wings. Unlike some other psychophysical methods (like the method of adjustment), the stimuli
are not changeable by the observer, thus they are constant stimuli. The observer's task is just
to report on the perception.

The goal of this type of experiment is to produce a psychometric function, that is, a set of
values that describes the probability of a certain response as a physical characteristic is varied.
For the Müller-Lyer experiments, we will find the proportion of responses where the line without
wings seemed bigger than the standard as a function of the physical length of the line without
wings. With such a curve, you can often identify critical values, such as the point of subjective
equality, where the line without wings seemed to be the same size as the line with wings (e.g.,
50% of the time it is described as bigger and 50% of the time is described as smaller).

Instructions
If you have logged in, you'll see a black rectangle below. Make sure that you can see the full
area before you begin the lab.

One each trial, two vertical lines will appear. The line on the upper left has no wings. The line
on the lower right has outward-drawn wings. Your task is to choose which line is longer, the
one without wings or the one with wings.

There are a total of 130 trials. Each trial only takes a few seconds to complete. Do not go too
fast, though, or the computer will tell you to slow down and take time to make an accurate
judgment of relative line lengths. It is important that you look at the two stimuli and make a
careful decision. Because of this, there is a slight delay between when the stimuli appear and
when the response buttons become activated.

At the end of the experiment, you will be asked if you want to save your data to a set of global
data. After you answer the question, a new Web page window will appear that includes a
debriefing, your data, your group's data, and the global data.

Tablet Specific Details

If you are using a tablet, tap the Start Next Trial button to start a trial. If you think the line
without wings is longer, tap the Plain line is longer button. If you think the line with wings is
longer, tap the Line with wings is longer button.

Computer Specific Details

If you are using a computer, click the Start Next Trial button to start a trial. If you think the line
without wings is longer, click the Plain line is longer button. If you think the line with wings is
longer, click the Line with wings is longer button.

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