title: Reduction of the flash-lag effect in terms of active observation.
abstract: In the present study, we investigated how observers' control of stimulus change affects temporal and spatial aspects of visual perception. We compared the illusory flash-lag effects for automatic movement of the stimulus with stimulus movement that was controlled by the observers' active manipulation of a computer mouse (Experiments 1, 2, and 5), a keyboard (Experiment 3), or a trackball (Experiment 4). We found that the flash-lag effect was significantly reduced when the observer was familiar with the directional relationship between the mouse movement and stimulus movement on a front parallel display (Experiments 1 and 2) and that, although the unfamiliar directional relationship between the mouse movement and stimulus movement increased the flash-lag effect at the beginning of the experimental session, the repetitive observation with the same unfamiliar directional relationship reduced the flash-lag effect (Experiment 5). We found no consistent reduction of the flash-lag effect with the use of a keyboard or a trackball (Experiments 3 and 4). These results suggest that the learning of a specific directional relationship between a proprioceptive signal of hand movements and a visual signal of stimulus movements is necessary for the reduction of the flash-lag effect.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan. ichikawa@L.chiba-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ichikawa
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Masakura
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology; D009903:Optical Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D011434:Proprioception / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*