title: The Müller-Lyer illusion affects the planning and control of manual aiming movements.
abstract: Participants made perceptual judgments about the length of, and manual aiming movements to the opposite end of, formerly visible Müller-Lyer stimuli. The Müller-Lyer illusion affected both perceptual judgments and aiming amplitude. Manipulations of stimulus duration (10 ms or 3000 ms) and memory delay length (10 ms or 3000 ms) had no impact on the illusory effect. Aiming movements executed with vision of the hand were less affected by the illusion than movements executed without vision of the hand. The effect of the illusion on aiming amplitude remained the same between peak velocity and the end of the movement even though participants were engaged in on-line control between peak deceleration and the end of the movement. This latter finding was counter to the predictions of a hypothesis (Glover 2002) stating that illusions should only affect the early (planning) stages of movement and not the late (control) stages of movement. We conclude that a single visual representation is used for perception, motor planning, and motor control.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, N1G 2W1, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. dmeegan@uoguelph.ca
authors.forename: Daniel V
authors.initials: DV
authors.lastname: Meegan
authors.forename: Cheryl M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Glazebrook
authors.forename: Victoria P
authors.initials: VP
authors.lastname: Dhillon
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tremblay
authors.forename: Timothy N
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: Welsh
authors.forename: Digby
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Elliott
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005246:Feedback / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*