The Differential Effects of Brief Exposures and Surrounding Contours on Direct and Indirect Tilt Illusions

Abstract

Four experiments in which logarithmic intervals between 25 and 1600 ms were used for stimulus duration in tests for the tilt illusion are reported. It is demonstrated that the direct and the indirect tilt illusions both increase in magnitude inversely with length of stimulus presentation. The data suggest that whereas the direct effect peaks with a value of about +7° at the shortest flash duration used (25 ms), peak indirect effects (of about +2°) do not occur at this duration. In addition, whereas direct effects level out after 100 ms stimulus exposure times, to the usual magnitude obtained with long presentations (about + 2°), indirect effects reach their standard magnitude (−0.5° to −1.0°) later, at exposures of about 400 ms. Even at very short flash durations, a luminance square frame surrounding the illusion display reduces the indirect effect by two thirds of its magnitude but has no effect at all on the direct effect. It is suggested that direct effects arise early in visual processing, in area V1, where there are transient mechanisms and where corruption of orientation analysis by the inducing grating would occur prior to later, extrastriate, global analysis of the surrounding peripheral frame. Indirect effects, on the other hand, may arise later, along the sustained parvocellular colour—form pathway, where more global processing occurs and susceptibility to surrounding fields might be expected.