Stability of Autokinetic Movement

Abstract

Experimental investigation into the relationship between the autokinetic illusion and personality factors requires greater knowledge of the generality of the various findings on individual differences. The stability of autokinetic movement was investigated by varying several conditions: instructional set (accuracy vs illusion), Light source (stationary vs moving), sex of E, number and length of trials, re-test time interval. Results for female college Ss lend support to the hypothesis that one dimension of apparent movement, length of line, is a stable individual characteristic.

Autokinetic illusion: A systematic review of theories, measures, and independent variables.

“…Any judgment in an ambiguous situation is biased by suggestion and information that changes subjects' assumptions about that situation (Green & Swets, 1966). Many suggestion-sensitive AKI measures are very reliable when the subjects and test situation are held constant (Gilbert, Hahn, Wackwitz, & Martin, 1965). Whenever the test situation changes, response changes may be due to changes in either the AKI or in the subject's response habits and assumptions (Linton,19S4).…”

“…Since most drawing parameters depend so much on the subjects' response habits, it is not surprising that they are reliable (Gilbert et al, 1965), even after a year . Since subjects need to make so many assumptions one finds, as expected, that suggestion effectively changes drawing size (Royce et al, 1966).…”

“…Drawn responses also remain stable, as long as subjects' scaling behavior is not changed by suggestion. Many drawing size measures have reliabilities above .8 (Gilbert, 1967;Gilbert et al, 1965;Haines et al, 1965). Many pattern characteristics that can only be measured by judges' ratings are also reliable (Santos et al, 1965).…”