Todorović Dejan, Jovanović Ljubica
Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Belgrade, Serbia.
Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs, Département d'études cognitives, École normale supérieure, PSL Research University, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2018 Apr;185:180-187. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.02.011. Epub 2018 Mar 16.
The Ebbinghaus illusion, in which a central target surrounded by larger context figures looks smaller than when surrounded by smaller context figures, is usually classified as a size contrast illusion. Thus "size contrast" is the dominant account of this effect. However, according to an alternative "contour interaction" account this phenomenon has little to do with size contrast but is rather caused by distance-dependent attractive and repulsive interactions between neural representation of contours. Here evidence is presented against the size contrast account and consistent with the contour interaction account. Experiment 1 was a control study confirming that the illusion can be obtained using displays consisting only of squares, which are more convenient to manipulate than the standardly used circles. In Experiment 2, the standard configuration involving small context figures surrounding the target was compared to a novel configuration, which involved many "spread" small context figures. The illusory effect of the standard context was stronger than the illusory effect of the spread context, in accord with the prediction of the contour interaction account, and contrary to the prediction of the size contrast account. In Experiment 3 two novel configurations were used, based on standard and spread contexts. The results were in accord with the prediction of the contour interaction account, whereas the size contrast account had no prediction because the stimuli did not involve conventional size contrast. Additional aspects of the stimuli and an account of the illusion based on a perspective interpretation are also discussed.
艾宾浩斯错觉是指一个被较大背景图形环绕的中心目标看起来比被较小背景图形环绕时更小，通常被归类为大小对比错觉。因此，“大小对比”是对这种效应的主要解释。然而，根据另一种“轮廓相互作用”的解释，这种现象与大小对比几乎无关，而是由轮廓神经表征之间与距离相关的吸引和排斥相互作用引起的。这里提供的证据反对大小对比的解释，而支持轮廓相互作用的解释。实验1是一项对照研究，证实了使用仅由正方形组成的显示可以获得错觉，正方形比标准使用的圆形更便于操作。在实验2中，将涉及围绕目标的小背景图形的标准配置与一种新颖的配置进行了比较，后者涉及许多“分散”的小背景图形。标准背景的错觉效应比分散背景的错觉效应更强，这与轮廓相互作用解释的预测一致，与大小对比解释的预测相反。在实验3中，基于标准和分散背景使用了两种新颖的配置。结果与轮廓相互作用解释的预测一致，而大小对比解释没有预测，因为刺激不涉及传统的大小对比。还讨论了刺激的其他方面以及基于透视解释的错觉说明。
