Perception of the Müller–Lyer illusion in capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella)

Suganuma, Elisa; Pessoa, Valdir Filgueiras; Monge-Fuentes, Victoria; Castro, Bráulio Magalhães; Tavares, Maria Clotilde Henriques

doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2007.05.014

Cited by 53 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…There have been the reports of that chimpanzees experience visual illusions such as the illusion of brightness (Gunter, 1954), the Ponzo illusion (Fujita, 1997), the Müller-Lyer illusion (Suganuma et al, 2007), and the corridor illusion (Imura & Tomonaga, 2009). There is also evidence that pigeons experience visual illusions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cats and Illusory Motion

Bååth¹,

Seno²,

Kitaoka³

2014

PSYCH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present the first evidence that cats experience visual illusions and that a non-human animal can see illusory motion. In three videos we show cats reacting with hunting behavior when watching the Rotating Snakes illusion. This is taken to mean that cats see illusory motion in this image due to the propensity of cats to pursue movement. This is further supported by a survey where 29% of the respondents answered that their cat reacted to the illusion. A number of preferential looking experiments were also indicative of cats experiencing the illusion, but not conclusively so.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cats and Illusory Motion

Bååth¹,

Seno²,

Kitaoka³

2014

PSYCH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…When assessing animal susceptibility to the Müller-Lyer illusion, it is crucial to control for the possibility that the animals are making selections based on overall figure size, as choosing the larger overall figure would result in the same responses as susceptibility for the Müller-Lyer illusion in the expected direction. As such, studies require clever control experiments to ensure animals are not merely making choices based on overall size (e.g., Suganuma, Pessoa, Monge-Fuentes, Castro, & Tavares, 2007). The Müller-Lyer illusion has been investigated in bamboo sharks, homing pigeons, ringneck doves, African gray parrots, capuchin monkeys, rhesus macaques, bantam chickens, and redtail splitfin fish (Table 5).…”

Section: Mccreadymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In humans, the Ponzo illusion appears to Suganuma et al (2007) 1 0 a d u l t Cebus apella (capuchin monkeys) Two-choice discrimination task Yes 5 male, 5 female; 6-10 years old Pepperberg, Vicinay, and Cavanagh (2008) 1maleadultPsittacus erithacus (African gray parrot) Two-choice discrimination task Yes Nakamura, Watanabe, and Fujita (2009b) 3Columba livia (homing pigeons) Size-classification task Yes All aged 10 years; 1 female, 2 males Tudusciuc and Nieder (2010) 2 m a l e Macaca mulatta (rhesus monkeys) Same or different Yes…”

Section: Mccreadymentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do animals differ in their susceptibility to geometrical illusions?

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In humans, geometrical illusions are thought to reflect mechanisms that are usually helpful for seeing the world in a predictable manner. These mechanisms deceive us given the right set of circumstances, correcting visual input where a correction is not necessary. Investigations of non-human animals' susceptibility to geometrical illusions have yielded contradictory results, suggesting that the underlying mechanisms with which animals see the world may differ across species. In this review, we first collate studies showing that different species are susceptible to specific illusions in the same or reverse direction as humans. Based on a careful assessment of these findings, we then propose several ecological and anatomical factors that may affect how a species perceives illusory stimuli. We also consider the usefulness of this information for determining whether sight in different species might be more similar to human sight, being influenced by contextual information, or to how machines process and transmit information as programmed. Future testing in animals could provide new theoretical insights by focusing on establishing dissociations between stimuli that may or may not alter perception in a particular species. This information could improve our understanding of the mechanisms behind illusions, but also provide insight into how sight is subjectively experienced by different animals, and the degree to which vision is innate versus acquired, which is difficult to examine in humans.

show abstract

“…Mainly non-human primates have been studied in this field. For instance, chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys are sensitive to the Ponzo illusion (Bayne & Davis, 1983;Fujita, 1997); rhesus monkeys exhibit a human-like perception of the Zöllner illusion (Agrillo, Parrish, & Beran, 2014a) and capuchin monkeys perceive the Müller-Lyer illusion (Suganuma, Pessoa, Monge-Fuentes, Castro, & Tavares, 2007) and are partially sensitive to the Solitaire illusion (Parrish, Agrillo, Perdue, & Beran, 2016). Illusory patterns have also been studied in non-primate species: Gray parrots can perceive the Müller-Lyer illusion (Pepperberg, Vicinay, & Cavanagh, 2008), chicks can perceive the Ebbinghaus illusion (Rosa Salva, Rugani, Cavazzana, Regolin, & Vallortigara, 2013) and bamboo sharks can see illusory contours in the Kanizsa triangle (Fuss, Bleckmann, & Schluessel, 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Preliminary study to investigate the Delboeuf illusion in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta): Methodological Challenges

Santacà¹,

Regaiolli²,

Petrazzini³

et al. 2017

AB&C

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

-Visual illusions are commonly used in animal cognition studies to compare visual perception among vertebrates. To date, researchers have focused their attention mainly on birds and mammals, especially apes and monkeys, but no study has investigated sensitivity to visual illusions in prosimians. Here we investigated whether lemurs (Lemur catta) perceive the Delboeuf illusion, a well-known illusion that occurs when subjects misperceive the relative size of an item because of its surrounding context. In particular, we adopted the spontaneous preference paradigm used in chimpanzees and observed lemurs' ability to select the larger amount of food. In control trials, we presented two different amounts of food on two identical plates. In test trials, we presented equal food portion sizes on two plates differing in size: If lemurs were sensitive to the illusion, they were expected to select the food portion presented on the smaller plate. In control trials, they exhibited poor performance compared to other mammals previously observed, being able to discriminate between the two quantities only in the presence of a 0.47 ratio. This result prevented us from drawing any conclusion regarding the subjects' susceptibility to the Delboeuf illusion. In test trials with the illusory pattern, however, the subjects' choices did not differ from chance. Our data suggest that the present paradigm is not optimal for testing the perception of the Delboeuf illusion in lemurs and highlight the importance of using different methodological approaches to assess the perceptual mechanisms underlying size discrimination among vertebrates.

show abstract

Perception of the Müller–Lyer illusion in capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella)

Cited by 53 publications

References 18 publications

Cats and Illusory Motion

Cats and Illusory Motion

Why do animals differ in their susceptibility to geometrical illusions?

Preliminary study to investigate the Delboeuf illusion in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta): Methodological Challenges

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About